[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 52 (Wednesday, May 4, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: May 4, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                        SOUTH AFRICAN ELECTIONS

  Mr. DeCONCINI. Madam President, I want to congratulate the people of 
South Africa for the strength and vision which allowed them to 
successfully carry out their first all-race elections. The acceptance 
of victory by Nelson Mandela, imprisoned for more than 20 years for 
attempts to achieve basic rights for black South Africans, was an 
historical culmination of decades of struggle against the reprehensible 
system of apartheid. The image of elderly black South Africans holding 
election ballots for the first time was a reminder of the immeasurable 
suffering which they have endured and the basic human rights and 
dignity which this election has restored to them.
  Nelson Mandela has shown incredible leadership and grace in the 
negotiations that led to Black majority rule. Former President F.W. de 
Klerk is also to be congratulated for the risks he took to end a 
shameful system of political and economic exploitation. While I was in 
South Africa in 1991, I had the opportunity to thank and praise Mr. de 
Klerk for the initial steps he took to remove the underpinnings of 
apartheid. Zulu Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi deserves praise for ending 
the Inkatha Freedom Party's boycott of the election. I also met with 
him in 1991. While Inkatha's longstanding rivalry with the ANC has a 
long trail of violence, Mr. Buthelezi's last minute decision to 
participate fully in the political process was one which was truly for 
the good of his country.
  While the elections have changed the course of South African history, 
the challenges that face the new government as they prepare a new 
constitution are enormous. Mr. Mandela will have to share power not 
only with the party which invented and enforced apartheid but also the 
Inkatha party with which the ANC has had a historic rivalry.
  Mr. Mandela has promised to fashion a true coalition government in 
order to escape the violence that has befallen many of South Africa's 
neighbors and claimed the lives of more than 13,000 South Africans 
since 1990. Honoring this pledge is crucial to successful governing in 
the new South Africa. The rights of all minorities must be respected--
including those who failed to receive sufficient votes to be 
represented in the interim government. Furthermore, the new government 
must address the country's economic problems which are the result of 
apartheid laws which left the economy in ruins. Mr. de Klerk has 
promised his cooperation during the transition period and he must honor 
that pledge. I believe he will. And Mr. Buthelezi must continue to be 
part of the process rather than part of the problem. All three leaders 
must work together constructively if there is to be a peaceful 
transition to representative democracy, and the other smaller parties 
must be a part of this new government.
  Congress struggled deeply over how best to aid the victims of 
apartheid and to dismantle this reprehensible system. In the end, we 
took what I believe was the right course by enacting sanctions against 
the South African Government in 1986 over former President Reagan's 
veto. I supported the strongest sanctions put forth during that debate. 
The sanctions proved effective in convincing the leaders of South 
Africa that the government could not continue to operate in the way it 
was operating.
  The sanctions proved effective beyond a doubt, in my judgment, in 
convincing the leaders of South Africa at that time that a government 
which imprisoned peacemakers, banned journalists and cameras, and 
denied basic human rights to a majority of its citizens, would not 
benefit from the economic might of the United States.
  The sanctions, together with disinvestment by companies from South 
Africa, contributed to an economic decline in that country which 
pressured the government to negotiate with leaders of the antiapartheid 
opposition. According to a South African bankers' report, the country 
lost between $32 billion and $40 billion because of the sanctions. Mr. 
Mandela said that the sanctions, ``. . .brought us to the point where 
the transition to democracy has now been enshrined in the law of our 
country.'' I have no doubt that the economic effects of the sanctions, 
including the loss of capital and technology, along with their 
psychological effect, accelerated the demise of apartheid.
  President Reagan's veto and the concern of many in that 
administration and some in Congress that sanctions would undermine an 
ally were far out of line with the opinion of most Americans. A quote 
of Mark Twain which I stated in 1986 in reference to South Africa is 
equally true today: ``Loyalty to a petrified opinion never yet broke a 
chain or freed a human soul.'' The people of South Africa deserve our 
strongest respect for enabling this truly momentous day to arrive in 
which they are finally proclaiming, ``free at last.''

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