New talks on Namibia

Press, 20 March 1982, Page 8

New talks on Namibia

NZPA-Reuter London High-ranking officials from five Western governments yesterday discussed how to speed up negotiations on a self-rule formula for South West Africa (Namibia). The closely co-ordinated Western effort to end South African control of the whteadministered region is already running three months behind schedule. Western leaders are worried that a 16-year-long guerrilla war against South Africa could intensify unless preparations for an independent State are launched before the end of 1982. Progress so far and prospects for the coming months were considered by directors of African affairs in the United States State Department and the British, Canadian, French, and West German foreign ministries. The five nations form a “contact group” on Namibia w’hich has been working behind the scenes for five years. Government spokesmen said there was no crisis mood as the two-day meeting started but the Western nations were anxious not to lose momentum in the long search for an agreed settlement. The contact group s media-

tion effort between South Africa, black African States and the South West Africa People's Organisation (5.W.A.P.0.) has bogged down in a dispute over voting rules for a constituent assembly.

S.W.A.P.O. and its African allies say that a Western plan for a two-vote system is loaded against S.W.A.P.O. and would benefit mainly Namibia’s 100,000 whites, about 10 per cent of the population. The plan would give each voter two ballots, one on a national basis, which would likely favour 5.W,A.P.0., and another on a trict basis, which could make it hard for the nationalist movement to gain an overall majority. Under a timetable set by the contact group, this issue should have been settled by the end of 1981.' Unless it is solved soon, there could be serious delays in negotiating the next phase of a complex programme which aims at getting the independence process started this year, with a final South African hand over in 1983. British officials said that both constitutional problems and second-phase plans for a ceasefire and a United Nations’ supervisory force were being considered at the London meeting.