Botha resists

Press, 4 October 1985, Page 6

Botha resists

NZPA-Reuter Johannesburg South Africa’s President, Mr Pieter Botha, has pledged to retain racially segregated living areas and schools. Speaking at a congress of his governing National Party yesterday, Mr Botha rejected calls to scrap one of the cornerstones of apartheid, the Group Areas Act. This provides for separate zones for residential areas and schools, marked out along racial lines. Although black schools and townships are inferior to those reserved for whites, Mr Botha said that segregation was not the same as discrimination. “If other population groups have rights and a rightful claim to humanitarian treatment, then I say that the whites who in turn have their own minority groups are also entitled to justice and to live ... in the manner they choose,” he said. “While I support equal educational opportunities for all, I say that the white child is also entitled to have his education within his own cultural surroundings.” Some white schools teach pupils in Mr Botha’s own

native Afrikaans tongue, others in < English,- r and others in both. Mr Botha, has repeatedly emphasised his commitment to reforming apartheid but has resisted foreign and domestic pressure to dismantle it. He was reacting yesterday to calls from a minority of party members to remove racial segregation. Jannie Momberg, a friend of the South African-born running star, Zola Budd, pleaded with the congress to ’‘send a signal back to the world” by abolishing legislation such as the Group Areas Act, which segregates living areas. Mr Botha, backed by most delegates, rejected the call. In Cape Town South Africa’s only two Coloured magistrates announced that they had quit, saying their consciences would not let them remain in the State’s legal system during the unrest. “The Cape Times” newsK quoted Eshaam sr as saying that he and Pam Side had resigned because religious convictions made them reluctant to preside over political cases.