South Africa Laying Down the Law

Few Presidents have excelled Ronald Reagan at winning showdown foreign policy votes on Capitol Hill. Through a combination of astute compromise and skillful personal lobbying, the President has managed to persuade reluctant legislators on such hotly contested matters as sending advanced AWACS surveillance aircraft to Saudi Arabia and aid to the contra guerrillas in Nicaragua. But ) last week Reagan's fabled reserves of luck and persuasion finally ran out. Both houses of Congress voted decisively to override his veto of a bill calling for stiff economic sanctions against South Africa.

It was only the sixth of 50 vetoes to be reversed during the Reagan presidency. White House researchers could find only two other examples this century of foreign policy vetoes that were overridden -- a World War II immigration measure and the 1973 War Powers Act, which Richard Nixon tried unsuccessfully to scuttle. In effect, Congress called for an abrupt end to the Reagan Administration policy of "constructive engagement," through which Washington sought to nudge South Africa into gradually liberalizing its system of apartheid. Instead, Congress adopted measures designed to bring about social change by exerting economic pressure on the government of State President P.W. Botha.

The sanctions package bans new American investments in South Africa and prohibits the import of such South African commodities as steel, iron, farm products, uranium and coal -- worth a total of $713 million in 1985. It suspends South African Airways' landing privileges in the U.S. The congressional package will reinforce the effect of somewhat weaker sanctions adopted last month by the twelve members of the European Community, which do not contain any provisions affecting coal imports or airline landing rights.

South African officials denied that the sanctions would have any major impact on the nation's economy. They warned, as Reagan did, that any hardships that do result will most likely affect South Africa's 24 million mostly poor blacks, as well as neighboring black African states whose economies are linked to Pretoria's. "Well, it's done," said Foreign Minister Roelof ("Pik") Botha. "Now maybe they'll leave us alone." Other foreign leaders who have opposed sanctions in the past showed little inclination to be swayed by the new U.S. policy. Said a top aide to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who led resistance to the E.C. measures: "Her determination to resist further sanctions remains as strong as ever."

An overwhelming majority of the U.S. Congress, however, felt that practical considerations have come to be outweighed by moral ones. The sanctions package, said an elated Congressman Mickey Leland, chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, "is absolutely the best we could do." Leland celebrated the Senate victory by joyfully hugging Randall Robinson, executive director of the antiapartheid lobbying group Transafrica. Indiana Republican Richard Lugar, the measure's Senate sponsor, summed it up: "Today the American people spoke in a strong and determined voice against racial injustice in Africa."