Lesotho’s blockade claim denied

Press, 16 January 1986, Page 8

Lesotho’s blockade claim denied

NZPA-Reuter Cape Town Lesotho said yesterday that South Africa had built up a blockade of its borders but the South African Foreign Minister, Mr Pik Botha, said in Cape Town: “It is not a blockade.” Lesotho, a mountain enclave within South Africa’s borders, had earlier appealed to the United States President, Mr Ronald Reagan, and the British Prime Minister, Mrs Margaret Thatcher, to resolve the dispute between the two countries. Pretoria, which says Lesotho harbours guerrillas fighting white domination in South Africa, has been clamping down on Lesotho

nationals entering the country since the beginning of the year. A Lesotho Government spokesman said yesterday that Pretoria had imposed a “total embargo” on essential goods. Mr Botha denied this. “We are not boycotting Lesotho. The South African Government does not believe in economic boycotts. We believe in trading with all countries in the world.” He said he was not aware of any Government decision enforcing an oil boycott in Lesotho. “Whether something went wrong with the channel through which oil is delivered, I can’t tell you,” he said.

Mr Botha said Lesotho officials of the joint liaison committee dealing with cross-border violations between the two countries had agreed to a meeting and said he welcomed this step. He also said that from reports he had received he believed some Lesotho opposition party leaders he met last week had been detained. A Lesotho Government spokesman said Mr Reagan and Mrs Thatcher had been fully briefed on what he described as a two-week South African clampdown. Yesterday the United States Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Mr Chester Crocker, left

South Africa and said that the time had come to find out what risks South Africans were prepared to take for peaceful reform. Mr Crocker has been trying for five years to achieve a peace settlement linking withdrawal of Cuban troops from Angola to independence for neighbouring Namibia (South West Africa), ruled by South Africa in defiance of the United Nations. Referring to the region as “a dangerous place,” he said he believed there was merit in pursuing a settlement on Namibia and Angola. Asked whether there had been progress on this matter, Mr Crocker said he saw “some possibilities to work with”.