U.S. panel favours tougher curbs

Press, 12 June 1986, Page 10

U.S. panel favours tougher curbs

NZPA-Reuter Washington A key United States House of Representatives committee approved legislation yesterday imposing tough new sanctions against South Africa, the Secretary of State, Mr George Shultz, said, would backfire and increase intransigence on both sides. The House Foreign Affairs committee voted 25 to 13 in favour of the Anti-Apartheid Act, 1986, which would impose sweeping new punitive

measures against the South African Government. The full House of Representatives is due to vote next week. The vote sets the stage for a new battle between Congress and the Administration, which strongly opposes sanctions in addition to a limited set reluctantly imposed by the President, Mr Ronald Reagan, under Congressional pressure in September. The new measures

would immediately end all new United States investments in South Africa, bar all commercial bank loans, withdraw landing rights from South African airlines, and prohibit imports of South African coal, steel, and uranium. A year later,-if Pretoria failed to release the jailed black nationalist leader, Nelson Mandela, and start' talks with black leaders, all American computer companies would be required to cease trading,

and a total ban on U.S. computer exports would apply. In addition Mr Reagan would be required in June, 1988, to decide whether complete U.S. divestment from South Africa was warranted by a lack of progress towards reforming apartheid. Before voting on the bill Democrats defeated a Republican amendment that would have removed the computer provision.