S.A. sanctions call resisted

Press, 12 October 1985, Page 10

S.A. sanctions call resisted

NZPA-AP Blackpool Britain’s Foreign Secretary, Sir Geoffrey Howe, insisted yesterday that Britain would not impose economic sanctions against South Africa, despite mounting pressure from former British colonies. ' '

Addressing the Conservative Party’s annual conference, Sir Geoffrey also defended Britain’s controversial decision to invite two Palestine Liberation Organisation members to Britain for talks on the Middle East

He refused to apologise for Britain’s rejection of economic sanctions on South Africa, a stance that underlined looming isolation at next week’s meeting of the 49-nation Commonwealth. Commonwealth officials have said that Britain will be pressured to impose economic sanctions on South Africa. They have hinted

that if Britain refuses it may be subject to sanctions by some Commonwealth nations.

Sir Geoffrey said that, as with South Africa, Britain “cannot prescribe solutions” on the Middle East

The PJLO. invitation was part of Britain’s policy of bringing Arabs and Israelis together on the basis of the Palestinians* right to selfdetermination and recognition of Israel’s right to secure existence.

Securing peace meant “we must be willing to take risks.”

Britain has said that the P.LO. representatives invited with a Jordanian delegation to London have renounced violence. No date has been announced for the talks. But critics have contrasted the Conservative Government’s invitation with its refusal to speak to

the outlawed Irish Republican Army, which is fighting to end British rule in Northern Ireland.

The Home Secretary told the conference that the Government planned to introduce a new law to combat street violence after rioting spread to the Midlands city of Leicester.

Mr Douglas Hurd said that he would ask Parliament to include a new offence of “disorderly conduct” in a public order law due to be passed soon. The new measure would enable the police to prevent hooligans from gathering in run-down housing estates — the scene of most of the inner-city violence. Mr Hurd and other speakers, addressing a debate on public order, dismissed assertions by the Opposition that the new outbreak of urban violence was a consequence of depriva-

tion and unemploymenL which has almost trebled since the Conservatives came to power in 1979. “In former times a man might be forgiven for stealing to feed his starving family,” Mr Hurd said. “But it is not poverty which leads people to burn down post offices, to loot television sets and videorecorders, and to make vicious attacks on the police. “The roots of these acts lie in greed and the excitement of violence,” he added

Announcing the new measure to make disorderly conduct an offence, Mr Hurd said that the police did not have adequate powers to control what he called hooligan behaviour. He promised to give the police all the equipment they needed, reinforcing a warning by London’s police after Sunday’s rioting in

Tottenham that they would use plastic bullets and teargas if the need arose in future. Plastic bullets, often employed to quell disorders in Northern Ireland, have never been used in mainland Britain and tear-gas has been used only once. Speakers at yesterday’s debate denounced local opposition politicians in the riot-hit areas for trying to stir up hatred against the police. A retired police sergeant, Tom Butcher, said that there were Marxists in the Labour and Liberal parties who were traitors to Britain. He said that a Tottenham Labour councillor, West Indian-born Bernie Grant, should be expelled from Britain for his remarks blaming the police for Sunday’s trouble and saying that they had taken “a bloody good hiding.”