Page 113 - SARB: 100-Year Journey

The apartheid effect
November 1962
The UN General Assembly adopts a resolution condemning South Africa and calls for an economic and arms boycott. This did not immediately happen as the world’s economic powerhouse, the US, was grappling with its own civil rights struggle mounted by black Americans and their allies.
1973
The UN General Assembly approves a resolution declaring apartheid ‘a crime against humanity’. This injected momentum towards pariah status for South Africa.
1974
South Africa is suspended from the UN General Assembly. This meant South African heads of state could no longer address the gathering.
1975−1980s
South Africa’s ‘border war’ with Angola continues into the 1980s. South Africa invaded Angola for a second time in 1978, the first being in 1975 during Operation Savannah. South Africa’s presence in Angola and Namibia (then called South West Africa) went on until 1989, at significant fiscal cost.
Early 1980s
US President Ronald Reagan and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher create a buffer against sanctions being instituted towards South Africa. Both argued that sanctions would harm black South Africans, a position opposed by most pro-democracy organisations within
1976 South Africa, which were predominantly black.
Thousands of black pupils throughout South Africa march against a government decision to impose Afrikaans as the medium of instruction. The most well known of these marches took place on 16 June 1976 in Soweto, a township south of Johannesburg, where police opened fire on unarmed protesting pupils. Like Sharpeville in 1960, global condemnation followed, as well as further isolation of South Africa from the rest of the world.
15 August 1986
The US Congress passes the Comprehensive Anti- Apartheid Act which placed obligations on the US to take steps to undermine apartheid and to bring about a negotiated settlement.
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