West vetoes call for ban against S.A.

Press, 2 May 1981, Page 8

West vetoes call for ban against S.A.

NZPA New York The United States. Britain, and France vesterday vetoed four Security Council resolutions to halt all trade with South Africa, widening the gulf between the Reagan Administration and black Africa. The council's Third-World and Communist members, including the Soviet Union and China, supported the resolutions. Japan. Ireland, and Spain either abstained or voted with the majority. But the vetoes were decisive. The resolutions were designed to bring pressure on South Africa to grant independence to South-West Africa, also known as Namibia, and to force the Reagan Administration to commit itself on the issue. The resolutions would have required United Nations members to stop all trade, including oil and arms deals, with South Africa, to end travel to the country, and to break diplomatic ties with its government. The resolutions would have also set up machinery to ensure that United Nations members comply with the curbs. The United States and its Western allies regarded the effort to impose sanctions as an empty, self-defeating gesture. They said that independence for Namibia, though thwarted by South Africa up to now, depended on Pretoria's consent and could not be achieved through blunt pressure. After the balloting, Jean Kirkpatrick, the American delegate, said that her vote “in no way affects the determination of the United States to make every possible effort to find a way to achieve an early, internationally accepted independence for Namibia.” But she said that sanctions were an ineffective means of influencing policy and that “history supports our view.” She cited the failure of the embargoes against Italy in the 1930 s over Abyssinia and Rhodesia in the 19705, and she noted that the United States had just ended its

curbs on the sale of grain to the Soviet Union. The chief spokesman for the Africans. Olara Otunnu of Uganda, replied, "If sanctions do not work, why would three permanent members of this council cast the heavy weight of their vote against measures which do not work?” His sarcasm brought a strong round of applause from the African diplomats who filled the chamber. The nine nations that voted for all four resolutions were the Soviet Union. East Germany. China. Uganda, Niger, the Philippines, Tunisia. Mexico, and Panama. Ireland and Spain voted with them to cut off oil and arms, but abstained on the attempt to halt all economic and diplomatic relations. Japan voted only for the weapons embargo, abstaining on the other measures. Five Western nations — the United States, Britain, France, West Germany, and Canada — want to seek a new solution to ease South African fears about a takeover of Namibia by Marxist guerrillas. The five nations are working on a plan providing guarantees for the political rights and economic holdings of Namibia’s white minority as well as some assurance that the territory will remain neutral. The Africans are expected to respond to the vetoes with a call for an emergency special session of the General Assembly, perhaps in the next few weeks. There, the resolutions will almost certainly be adopted by an overwhelming vote from the Third World and the Soviet bloc. There is no veto in the assembly. In Washington a senior official of the Reagan Administration said yesterday that a withdrawal of Cuban forces from Angola would help end the stalemate in Namibia. "Our view is that the two situations are inter-related,” said the official, who declined to be named. ’.‘Progress in one front would facilitate progress in the other.”