Cable Briefs

Press, 20 February 1979, Page 8

Cable Briefs

Oil cover-up South Africa is planning legislation to ensure that information about its oilsupply sources and reserves are kept a secret. The Economics Minister (Mr Chris Heunis) in a television interivew, said “It is very important that the position of South Africa’s reserves and the sources of supply of crude oil and the methods of transportation should not be discussed in public. Therefore I have decided to introduce legislation in Parliament that will control the discussion in public and the publication of information relating to origin, sources of supply, level of reserves, transportation, and all these matters relating to South Africa’s situation in this regard.” — Pretoria. Plane downed

The Colombian Air Force has shot down a light aircraft believed to be carrying drugs in northern Colombia, but its occupants could not be found, the Defence Ministry has said. The plane was the first to be shot down since the Government imposed strict air-traffic regulations last November in the Goajira region, about 1000 km north of Bogota, and the centre of a vast illegal trade in narcotics.—Bogota. Mass burial French Army bulldozers have dug mass graves in N’Djamena, the Chad capital, for an estimated 500 people who died in the fighting between rival Government factions last week. Bloated bodies had been left along the streets of the sprawling African quarter of the capital until yesterday, although a truce was called in the fighting on Thursday. The troops handling the bodies were from the 1000-strong French garrison based in N’Djamena which remained neutral in the fighting between the national army of President Felix Malloum and the Muslim rebel forces of the Prime Minister (Mr Hiss e n e Habre). — N’Djamena. Berkowitz claim The convicted “Son of Sam” killer, David Berkowitz, says he is of sound mind and “wants nothing except to be left alone and to spend the rest of my life in prison.” Berkowitz, aged 25, whose six killings terrorised New York City in 1977, has ordered his lawyers to abandon all possible appeals against his murder convictions. On a sheet of Attica Correctional Facility stationery dated January 5, : Berkowitz asked his attorney, Mr Leon Stem, “to remove my appeal for a new trial on the grounds of insanity.” He insisted that he had made up his trial story about (being possessed by demons.) —New York.