Poqo Crippled But New Power Sought

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30115, 26 April 1963, Page 13

Poqo Crippled But New Power Sought

(N.Z.PA.-Reuier— Copyright) CAPE TOWN, April 24. South African police believed they had “crippled” the underground anti-white Poqo terrorist movement, the Justice Minister (Mr Balthazar Vorster) told Parliament today. Leaders of all 16 divisions into which Poqo was organised had been arrested, he said. More than 1500 people had been involved in a recent police drive against the banned PanAfricanist Congress and its underground successor, Poqo.

Mr Vorster was introducing in the House of Assembly the second reading of a new bill against sabotage and African resistance. He admitted that the General Law Amendment Bill, published yesterday, sought “extraordinary powers which might be described as far-reach-ing”

However, there were people in South Africa and the rest of the world who believed there was no place for the white man in southern Africa, he said. He claimed the African National Congress and Pan Africanist Congress, both banned in South Africa, had 1963 as the target year for taking over the country. It had "been proved” that white men and women were behind these organisations and were "actually running them,” he said. The organisations changed the pattern of their activities very frequently and new powers were needed to combat them Irish Acts Cited

Mr Vorster said the new legislation was “not as drastic” as that passed by the British Government in 1922 at the time of the Irish revolt. That legislation was still on the Statute Book and had been invoked, to his knowledge, as recently as 1961.

The Minister said if Parliament did not want to grant him these powers, he was willing to exchange all such legislation passed since 1950 for one clause in the British Act on Northern Ireland. That clause, in essence, provided for the suspension of all existing rules and legislation if a situation demanded it.

At the end of Mr Vorster’s 100-minute speech, the leader of the opposition United Party (Sir de Villiers Graaf) said the party would support a second reading of the bill. But it would challenge certain provisions in the committee stage. One such provision was that giving power to detain a person who had already expiated his crime by serving a prison sentence. Sole Opponent

The Progressive Party’s lone representative in the Assembly, Mrs Helen Suzman, said she would oppose a second reading. In Johannesburg, the Black Sash organisation announced a series of silent vigils in the next few days in protest against the bill, the British T ' ited Press said.

Women draped with black sashes would take their stand at various points in Johannesburg. including the city hail They have been subjected to abuse and eggthrowing at previous antiGovernment demonstrations The Johannesburg “Star" lashed out at the new bill today under the headline: “Guilt-Edged Security.”

The newspaper said: ‘This bill means that the Nationalists after 15 years are finally giving up trying to govern by accepted Western standards Other countries, like France and Rhodesia, have recently departed from those standards because they also believed that the alternative was intimidation, terrorism, and chaos.

“Vaderland" praised the bill, saying that the majority of people, white and black, would be behind Mr Vorster Under the bill, courts will be empowered to impose the death penalty on anyone convicted of being trained in sabotage outside South Africa, or who since 1960 has advocated the invasion of the country. Police could detain suspects for recurring periods of 90 days without trial. The courts would have no power to intervene. The detained person could not have access to anyone without permission from the Justice Minister or the police.

Political leaders serving gaol sentence*. such a* the former Pan-Africamat leader, Mr Robert Sobukwe. could be detained indefinitely when released Mr Vorster indicated that Mr Sobukwe would be held in this way. _ Asked how long he could detain political leader* of this kind “for eternity, yean or month*," the Minister replied: “This side of eternity. It would depend on the circumstances in each case " Under the 90-day detention clause police will be able to arrest and hold without warrant anyone suspected of committing sabotage. er an

offence under the Suppression of Communism Act, or who has information on such an oifence.

Journalists who refuse to disclose sources of information about intended acts of sabotage, for example, could be so detained.

The President has power to suspend the 90-day detention provision for • time.