Vorster plans strong new security body

Press, 27 January 1978, Page 5

Vorster plans strong new security body

INZPA-Reuter Cape Town ! The South African Gov- 1 iernment has said it is going (ahead with plans to set up a j Parliamentary commission; with widespread powers to| investigate internal security. j The controversial body! has been branded a: “McCarthy type of com-) mittee” by the Opposition) leader (Mr Colin Eglin), who, said his Progressive Federal Party would boycott it. A spokesman for the office of the Prime Minister (Mr John Vorster) said members of the Parliamentary External Security Commission would be appointed after publication of a report on urban black unrest. He was commenting on! press reports that the! security commission would • be established soon. But Par-) liamentary observers do not!

i expect the Government report on black unrest to be ■ready for publication till mid-1979. Legislation to set up the ■commission was passed in 1976 but the government [shelved the plan in the face [of fierce Opposition resis■itance. ij Mr Vorster attempted to I persuade Opposition mem[bers to serve on the cornimittee and Mr Hennie van der Walt, the ruling National Party member who is i tipped to head it, said: “I personally am hoping the Opposition will be on the commission.” But Mr Eglin said the P.F.P. would have nothing to do with the commission. “We are totally opposed Ito this' McCarthy type of 1 committee,” he said, referring to the activities of the I late American senator Joiseph McCarthy who headed ian investigation of alleged

Communists in the United States in the early 19505. Mrs Helen Suzman, the P.F.P. Parliamentary spokesman on justice affairs, called the commission a “Star Chamber court” and went on: “It becomes very sinister oecaute a person summoned before it cannot have legal advice and has got to answer questions under pain of imprisonment.” Mrs Suzman said failure to answer the commission’s questions would be punishable by up to six months in jail, and the .entence could be repeated if the questions were still not. answered at the end of the prison term. Mr van der Walt said the committee would have no specific terms of reference. It would consider any internal security matters referred to it by the South African President (Mr Nicolaas Diederichs).