askchapo

Anti apartheid sanctions were passed pretty late in the USA, around 1986. Nelson Mandela was elected in 1994. Reagan tried to veto the anti apartheid bill, and got then South African foreign minister Pik Botha to call US politicians on the fence about the veto. This backfired and Reagan's veto was overruled, and the anti apartheid legislation passed. However, South Africa was subject to a voluntary arms embargo by the United Nations security council since 1963, an embargo the US voted in favour of. Only the UK and France abstained. This is why South Africa had such outdated military equipment by the end of apartheid, their newest fighter aircraft at the time were both of UK and French design, in the Buccaneer and Mirage respectively. This is probably a reason for the abstention. South Africa later attempted a domestic modernisation programme on some of it's weapons using Israeli technology. (The Atlas Cheetah is the best example of this). However the US did covertly support apartheid for many years.