ed was the Reagan administration with sending signals to South Africa's white minority, that between 1982 and 1984, U.S. diplomats had met with only 15 South African blacks, and that all of those meetings took place in the United States. As a result, it became more difficult for the American government to encounter blacks and solicit their views informally. Furthermore, increasing numbers of South African blacks (and white liberals) refused to attend functions given by U.S. diplomats in South Africa.
Equally offensive to some black South Africans was the fact that the United States expressed no opposition to the South African government's constitution which created separate chambers of parliament for "Coloreds and Asians," nor to the conduct of a whites-only referendum in 1983 for approval of the constitution. In a speech to the National Conference of Editorial Writers in San Francisco in 1983, U.S. Under Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger stated that he did not see it as in the interests of the United States to enter into a debate about South Africa's new constitution. It was also not in the interest of the United States to advise South Africa on constitutional matters. However, Eagleburger noted that the South African government had taken the first step toward extending political rights beyond the white minority.
In the view of black South Africans, who were almost universally opposed to the new constitution, the United States could hardly have devised a clearer endorsement of its proposals. In August of 1983, more than 570 organizations, with members from all races, joined in a movement that pledged to work actively against the new constitution. The result was the United Democratic Front (UDF), which eventually organized a massive boycott of the September 1984 elections for "Colored" and Indian members of parliament. Since only 30.9 percent of "Coloreds" and 20.3 percent of Indians who had taken the step of reg...