Sanctions lifted after 31 years: interim constitution agreed on.
Position | UN General Assembly action for South Africa, October 8, 1993 |
Noting that the "transition to democracy has now been enshrined in the law of South Africa", the General Assembly on 8 October ended a 31-year ban on economic and other ties with South Africa and its nationals, in the areas of trade, investment, finance, travel and transportation. States were asked to lift the sanctions they had imposed over the years under numerous UN resolutions and decisions.
Economic sanctions were first enacted in 1962, when the Assembly asked Member States to break off diplomatic relations with South Africa, boycott its goods and refrain from exporting goods, including armaments, to that country. Those sanctions were expanded over the years, as the international community sought to end the system of apartheid, which the Assembly had repeatedly condemned as a "crime against humanity".
In adopting resolution 48/1 by consensus, the 184-member world body decided that the embargo on petroleum and petroleum products and on investment in the petroleum industry in South Africa would cease, as soon as the Transitional Executive Council - South Africa's first non-racial governing body - became operational. That Council met for the first time on 7 December in Cape Town.
Ibrahim A. Gambari of Nigeria, Chairman of the Special Committee against Apartheid, said the Assembly action would send "a very strong signal "to South Africans that the international community would assist in the country's economic reconstruction and ensure that the new South Africa would begin its existence unhampered by the constraints imposed on the old South Africa. "The long journey towards the final obliteration of over 300 years of minority domination is near its end", he later said.
The Security Council instituted a voluntary arms embargo against South Africa in 1963, making it mandatory on 4 November 1977 - the first time such an action had been taken against a Member State.
Also in 1977, the Assembly asked the Council to consider imposing mandatory economic sanctions and in January 1979, to consider a mandatory embargo on oil and oil products.
The international Convention against Apartheid in Sports, adopted by the Assembly in 1985, entered into force on 4 April 1988. The Convention obliged States parties not to permit sports contacts with countries practising apartheid.
In November 1986, the Assembly set up the Intergovernmental Group to Monitor the Supply and Shipping of Oil and Petroleum Products to South Africa. its mandate was terminated on 20...
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