‘Awesome tragedy’ foreseen if sanctions not put on S.A.

Press, 13 June 1986, Page 6

‘Awesome tragedy’ foreseen if sanctions not put on S.A.

NZPA-Reuter London A long-awaited report on South Africa by a senior Commonwealth group says failure to increase economic pressure on the white authorities would speed a descent into unprecedented violence and an "awesome tragedy.” The report by the eminent persons group was being officially published today. The 116-page document, product of six months work by the seven-person team, seems certain to add to the already Intense pressure on Margaret Thatcher’s Government to, agree to economic sanctions against Pretoria. Mrs Thatcher is already virtually isolated in the Commonwealth in opposing sanctions, and analysts and diplomats now believe that unless she changes her view the 37

year-old association that binds Britain to its former territories is in danger of splitting apart. The team, headed by the former Australian Prime Minister, Malcolm Fraser, and a retired Nigerian head of State, Lieutenant-General Olugsegun Obasanjo, says the failure to impose sanctions is encouraging the South African Government to believe that it can resist or delay fundamental reforms of the apartheid system. “If it (the South African Government) comes to the conclusion that it would always remain protected from such measures, the process of change in South Africa is unlikely to increase in momentum and the descent into violence would be accelerated,” the report says.

“In these circum-

stances, the cost in lives may have to be counted in millions.”

Early indications were that the British Government intended to stand firm in its opposition to sanctions.

A Junior Foreign Minister, Lynda Chalker, repeated its established position when questioned on the issue yesterday in Parliament.

“We certainly know that sanctions as applied in the past ... have not given a clear outcome. We should only consider measures which will work, otherwise we will worsen the situation still further,” she said.

The report predicted that unless the cycle of violence was soon broken, the conflict would quickly move into a new and much bloodier phase, in which “soft civilian tar-

gets become prime targets in a reign of terror and counter-terror.” It said the unco-ordi-nated violence of today would intensify into serious armed conflict spilling well beyond South Africa’s borders and destroying the country’s economic fabric. The South African Government, the report says, has still not come to terms with the necessity of real reform and refuses to face the prospect of giving up white power and domination in the foreseeable future. Such reforms as have been proposed or enacted are intended not to end apartheid but to give it a less inhuman face, the document says. Even the more enlightened Ministers were out of touch with the rising mood of anger in the

townships, where increasing numbers of blacks were ready to die in the struggle against apartheid, the report says. In contrast, the team praises leaders of the African National Congress, singling out Oliver Tambo and the jailed leader, Nelson Mandela, for their "reasonableness, absence of rancour, and readiness to find negotiated /solutions.”

It urges the South African Government to release Mr Mandela, saying that contrary to their fears he would be a voice appealing for calm with the necessary authority to achieve it.

"His freedom is a key component in there being any hope of a peaceful resolution of a conflict which will otherwise prove all-consuming,” the report says.