Ghana Ban Alarms S.A. Industrialist

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29271, 1 August 1960, Page 11

Ghana Ban Alarms S.A. Industrialist

JOHANNESBURG, July 30.

A call to the South African Government to take up urgently with the Commonwealth the matter of official boycotts of South African goods has been made by one of the union’s leading industrialists..

In a statement last night, after Ghana’s announcement of a complete official boycott of South African goods, Mr C. F Regnier, president of the Cape Chamber of Industries, said such boycotts by signatories of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade was now reaching serious proportions. “This type of retaliatory action by one signatory against another is a flagrant breach of the agreement which specifically forbids retaliation of any sort.” he said. So far there has been no official South African reaction to Ghana’s moves, which include a ban on all South Africans who do not declare opposition to apartheid and racial discrimination entering or passing through Ghanian territory. But there will be a Cabinet meeting on Monday, the day the boycott starts—coinciding with a Malayan Government boycott of South African goods. South African ships and planes are also banned from all Ghana’s

sea and airports. But the air and shipping correspondents of the “Rand Daily Mail,” Johannesburgh morning newspaper, pointed out today that no South African ships or planes normally touch Ghana. Ghana Government sources said they believed the boycott and ban is the most complete anti-South Africa measure taken by any Government in protest against the Union’s apartheid policy. Earlier this month, the President of Ghana (Dr Nkrumahi urged all independent African States to set a date for a total economic boycott of South Africa. He said this boycott should include barring South Africa the use, of the independent States' airfields, and not allowing oil to go to South Africa through any of their harbours. “South African ships must be denied the use of African ports, and material economic sanctions should be invoked against that apartheid Government,” he said.