Pretoria eases grip on Mugabe

Press, 15 January 1982, Page 13

Pretoria eases grip on Mugabe

By

ALLISTER SPARKS,

from Salisbury

Under pressure from the United States, South Africa has signalled willingness to ease the economic squeeze it has been putting on Zimbabwe since the Mugabe Government took power from the regimes of lan Smith and Abel Muzorewa. The Zimbabwean Government is expected to receive an invitation this month to send officials to the “neutral ground" of Johannesburg international airport to negotiate renewal of the preferential trade agreement between the two countries. Originally, the South Africans had given notice to end the agreement on March 31.

South Africa is Zimbabwe’s biggest trading partner by far, taking more than three times the exports that go to its next biggest market, Britain.

Ending the agreement would not only have sent up the prices of Zimbabwe's goods in South Africa — mostly manufactured goods, such as textiles and shoes — but would also have subjected them to South Africa’s strict import quota system.

This would have been a serious blow to the new nation as it emerges from years of sanctions and guerrilla war, trying simultaneously to meet black aspirations and reassure nervous whites who have always believed black rule would mean economic decline. »

Pressure from the United States and Britain has also resulted in South Africa returning 25 diesel locomotives that had been lent to the U.D.I. regimes but withdrawn from Mugabe. Also, the turn-around times of Zimbabwean traffic to and from South African ports, which had been slowed down by South African Railways, has been speeded up again.

The withdrawal of the locomotives, and about 150 loco mechanics who had been on loan from South Africa, had crippled Zimbabwean Railways. The situation was aggravated by the rebel Mozambique Resistance Movement — allegedly supported by South Africa — blowing up the Pungwe road and rail bridge connecting Salisbury with the Mozambique port of Beira.

That delayed reopening the oil pipeline from the Geruka refiner}' in Beira which has

been closed since U.D.I. All this caused Zimbabwe to begin suffering critical shortages of fuel and other essentials from September. It also meant Zimbabwe was unable to shift its record 1981 maize crop to earn much-needed foreign exchange and help feed starving countries to the north of it, particularly Tanzania. The easing of these South African pressures, and the pending reinstatement of the trade agreement, has been confirmed by senior diplomatic and Government sources in Salisbury. There was no direct confirmation that this resulted from American intervention, but it was pointed out that two weeks after Dr Chester Crocker, the United States

Under-Secretary of State for Africa, had visited Pretoria and Salisbury with the “Western Five" contact group on Namibia, two Zimbabwean officials had been to Johannesburg airport to negotiate the return of the 25 locomotives. The indication of Pretoria's willingness to reinstate the trade agreement came soon afterwards. It is known that the Reagan Administration regards Mugabe’s Government as an important point of stability in southern Africa, and has been dismayed by South Africa’s actions against it. These actions appear to have had three objectives: 1. South Africa wants all its black neighbours to be kept constantly aware of its

economic hold over them and its military dominance of the region, as a warning against aiding African National Congress guerrillas. 2. It wants to put a price tag on the anti-apartheid rhetoric of its black neighbours.

3. It wants to force Zimbabwe into reopening diplomatic relations.

After independence. President Mugabe announced that he would continue normal trade relations, but not political and diplomatic relations. with the apartheid Government. He closed Zimbabwe’s diplomatic mission in Pretoria, leaving only a trade mission. South Afirca had to reciprocate. Since then South Africa has responded to Zimbabwe’s complaints about the economic squeeze by insisting on Minister-to-Minister representations before it would consider them. Zimbabwe has refused, accusing South Africa of using its economic stranglehold to try to force political relations.

The Western Powers have had to find a compromise in the form of Zimbabwean officials going to Johannesburg airport. Copyright — London Observer Service.

A fortune estimated at several million dollars awaits anyone who can invent a gadget which would stop illicit taping of records. The silent ingredient would be what is known in the record industry as a "spoiler" — a noice which remains unheard when the record is played, but sets up a deafening racket the moment an attempt is made to transfer the disc to a blank cassette.

The British phonographic industry is seeking to end the 15-year search for an effective “spoiler” by organising a competition for a workable device.

“Anyone who can produce such a gadget will certainly make a considerable fortune; and the record industry would not begrudge him a penny; says a spokesman for the competition organisers. Illicit taping is believed to be costing record companies thousands of millions of dollars a year. In Britain alone, worried executives now calculate their losses at $450 million annually.

Indeed, many now believe the industry’s survival depends on making it impossible for people to tape borrowed records on to blank cassettes.

A spokesman for the British Phonogoraphic Industry says: “Home taping is crip’pling us. In the past 10 years it has virtuality knocked the