Envoy lays it on the line

Press, 23 May 1977, Page 8

Envoy lays it on the line

NZPA - Reuter Johannesburg

I Mr Andrew Young, AmerI ica’s outspoken United (Nations delegate, has told ; white South Africans that they must change their racial segregation system if the country is to survive and prosper.

The black envoy was (answering critics of bis views at a lunch given by the diamond tycoon, Mr Harry Oppenheimer, who invited him to South Africa. Mr Young told reporters after the lunch that one businessman had told him that he was ready to fight for the South African wav of life.

“I said, who are you going to fight? You can’t fight points in the money market, you can’t fight markets 2000 miles away that ought to be yours. There is nobody, going to come in here with an army and run you out,” j Mr Young said. Mr Young stressed his theme that South Africa, now in an economic slump, needed the spending power of its black majority and. must bring them into the mainstream or risk being ruined. “Our experience in Vietnam and our economic difficulties were brought on by military spending, and

South Africa’s increasing military budget is putting them in economic difficulties,” Mr Young said. The economic interests of the United States and all South Africa’s major trading I partners were shifting away from South Africa towards black Africa, he continued. The United States, West Germany, France, and Canada all did more business with Nigeria alone than with South Africa.