Top U.S. team meets Pretoria Minister

Press, 10 August 1985, Page 10

Top U.S. team meets Pretoria Minister

NZPA-Reuter Washington The Reagan Administration is seeking serious changes in South Africa’s racial policies in spite of the President’s declared opposition to tough economic sanctions against the country, Western diplomats say. The diplomats said senior American officials had requested the changes in a surprise meeting in Vienna yesterday with the South African Foreign Minister, Mr Roelof Botha. They said that the American delegation had gone to the talks “hoping the South Africans realised that the pressure was on them to do something if constructive engagement were to continue.” Washington’s policy of constructive engagement — relying on quiet diplomacy to persuade Pretoria to change tack on apartheid — has come under increasing criticism in the United States during intensifying violence in South Africa. The diplomats said that the United States team of the National Security Ad-

viser, Mr Robert McFarlane, and the Assistant Secretary of State for Africa, Mr Chester Crocker, had no fixed demands to make of Mr Botha. “I think this was an openminded U.S. team and I don’t think they knew what they were going to hear from Botha,” one said. “But certainly, if Botha did not come up with enough, they would have said so and

told him what Washington wanted to happen.” The State Department said that another meeting would be held in Vienna today with Mr Crocker and Herman Nickel, the United States ambassador to South Africa, who was recalled for consultations in June, representing the United States. Yesterday’s talks were the first high-level contact between the two countries since Mr Nickel was recalled as an expression of Washington’s anger over a South African military raid into Botswana. Pretoria recalled its Am-bassador-designate to Washington last week as the Reagan Administration made its anger over Pretoria’s handling of the violence increasingly plain. The diplomats said that Mr McFarlane was expected to repeat United States demands made publicly and frequently in recent weeks that the state of emergency imposed last month be lifted and talks started with black leaders

on moving away from apartheid. They said that Mr McFarlane may have sought an explanation of comments made by Mr Botha’s deputy, Louis Nel, in an interview on American television this week. In the interview, Mr Nel said that South Africa was willing to discuss the revision of any law in talks with black leaders but that the violence had been fomented by black revolutionaries intent on preventing such talks. The diplomats said that Mr McFarlane was also likely to have discussed the eight demands contained in a Congressional bill that would allow Mr Reagan to hold off implementing tough economic sanctions against South Africa. The bill demanded radical changes to apartheid. It called for negotiations with black leaders, an easing of restrictions on where blacks could live, and the release of political prisoners.