UN. Sanctions Against South Africa Likely

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29363, 16 November 1960, Page 8

UN. Sanctions Against South Africa Likely

(New Zealand Press Association)

(Rec. 10 p.m.) LONDON, November 15.

Pressure against South Africa is building up in the United Nations and critics there believe the Union faces the possibility of sanctions and isolation, says the “Scotem'an’s” Commonwealth correspondent. Nearly every year since 1949 the Union "has run the gauntlet of a United Nations majority against it on three separate questions—its racial policies, the treatment of people of Indian origin in the country and the mandated territory of South-west Africa.

It has bben a frustrating story tor the United Nations, says the correspondent. Probably the most frustrating , of all are those occasions where the world forum consistently makes recommendations which are 'quietly ignored. This year the .situation has changed again. Sharpeville and the emergency and the admission of large numbers of African States to the Assembly have been added to the growing significance of the Smaller countries’ of the world and to the need tor larger countries to define their attitudes en questions more precisely—par-

ticularly on the question of race and the treatment of backward peoples. Accordingly, South Africa’s critics are more confident than ever before that their annual speech-making and resolutionpassing in New York will have some effect, not because they believe their words will be listened to —the South African Government is absolutely consistent on its insistence that the policies under attack are its own business and moreover that they are right —but because the prospect ot international sanctions and enforced isolation tor the Union is coming very near.

The battleground in which the South African items are fought out is the General Assembly and its special Political Committee. The General Assembly is not able to take action except under very special circumstances and procedures and can only recommend its members to follow certain courses. It has not, up to now. suggested sanctions; but certain countries are already pressing this year tor the inclusion of such operative paragraphs in their resolutions, the correspondent says.