Heath: apartheid must- go

Press, 2 September 1981, Page 8

Heath: apartheid must- go

NZPA-Reuter Johannesburg The Western world will not support South Africa at any time, while it maintains its apartheid policies, the former British Prime Minister. Edward Heath, said yesterday. He told a conference on international affairs in Johannesburg: "Neither in peace-time nor in war would the West stand in strategic alliance with South Africa as long as she pursues a system which it considers to be profoundly insulting to the rigfits of’ the overwhelming majority of her population.

“To do so . . . would be to facilitate, and even to legitimise. Soviet interference in Africa and in other conflicts or regions around the world in which the West is engaged." the former Conservative Prime Minister said.

Mr Heath said although there had been some internal reforms, this did not mean they were even remotely adequate. Most of the reforms were peripheral to a great proportion of the black population, he said, adding: “They offer 4 no hope that the core of apartheid will be removed . . Mr Heath said South Africa must move quickly to dismantle the system of apartheid, particularly after the independence of Zimbabwe last year.

“It would be short-sighted not to acknowledge the inspiration that the victory of the Patriotic Front parties will inevitably have given to those black South Africans who have hitherto sought peaceful change for their country,” he said.

"The experinece of Kenya and Zimbabwe . has shown that the longer < freedom fighters are suppressed and isolated, the more they will resort to violence and to the patronage of radical or antiWestern nations.” For this reason, Mr Heath said, it was (essential, in bringing the disputed territory of Namibia (South-West Africa) to independence, that the South-West African People's Organisation be recognised as a full and legitimate participant in elections. He expressed confidence that the opportunity for political reform without revolution still existed, but added: “If ever an historical tide of change was determined by necessity, it is the move towards full political participation by blacks in South Africa."