Olifant has a good point. Folks like Whitney Houston and other Hollywood crusaders picked up the cause of Apartheid. Their solution the one eventually adopted by the US Congress and rejected by President Reagan was sanctions.

Reagan was right in pushing for a policy of "constructive engagement". Reagan believed and history has proven him correct that sanctions would hurt very people we seek to help. Most of the workers who would lost jobs because of sanctions were black workers. It was western nations such as the US, Britain and France that brought the ideas of social justice to South Africa, and with their departure these ideas were soon lost to a repressive government. Before sanctions were imposed the conditions in South Africa were changing, albeit slowly. However, when you try to rush any change you face problems in the future, and that is exactly what occurred.

dmk