Reagan dismays friends, foes

Press, 24 July 1986, Page 10

Reagan dismays friends, foes

NZPA-Reuter Washington

The President of the United States, Mr Ronald Reagan, firmly refusing to give ground on his opposition to sanctions meant to pressure South Africa to abandon apartheid, has set the stage for a divisive and potentially damaging battle with Congress. His not announcing any new measures against Pretoria’s white-minority Government yesterday earned condemnation and dismay from members of his own Republican Party, as well as opposition Democrats.

Mr Reagan struck an obstinate and defiant note in an address on United States policy in southern Africa that many had thought would help ap-

pease legislators and hold off congressional moves to impose tough new sanctions against South Africa.

“I urge the Congress and the countries of Western Europe to resist this emotional clamour for punitive sanctions,” Mr Reagan said. “We must stay and work, not cut and run.”

Mr Reagan not only repeated his uncompromising stand on the issue but also called for more, not less, business investment in South Africa. "We need — not a Western withdrawal — but deeper involvement by the Western business community as agents of change and progress and growth.” Mr Reagan urged the

South African President, Mr Pieter Botha, to set a timetable to end what he called the outrage of apartheid. He also renewed the Administration’s call for the release of political prisoners, including Nelson Mandela, the jailed head of the outlawed African National Congress.

But he did not extend the expected olive branch to the A.N.C., calling them Soviet-armed guerrillas and saying some elements engaged in calculated terror.

Mr Reagan did not extend the limited sanctions he imposed on Pretoria last year which are due to expire on September 9. He emphasised South Africa’s strategic importance and said the Soviet

Union would be the main beneficiary of any rise in hostilities between Pretoria and the black African States that have been pressing for an end to apartheid. “Thus, it would be an historic act of folly for the United States and the West — out of anguish and frustration and anger — to write off South Africa,” Mr Reagan said. Many members of Congress were shocked and angered by Mr Reagan’s stand and some predicted the Republican-led Senate now would pass much tougher sanctions legislation than had seemed likely before his speech. The House of Representatives already has approved a measure imposing a comprehensive

trade ban on South Africa.

Mr Reagan had been

warned by one of his close political allies, Senator Richard Lugar, of Indiana, that he would lose control of South Africa policy unless he took new action against Pretoria. “There’s not one single new item on the table as a result of that speech,” said Senator Lowell Weicker (Rep., Connecticut). Senator Edward Kennedy (Dem., Massachusetts), co-sponsor of two sanctions bills with Mr Weicker, said Mr Reagan had abdicated his leadership on the issue of South Africa and it now was passing to Congress.

“The President’s statement was not only a disappointment but 1 a

disaster,” he said, Mr Reagan aligned himself firmly with the British Prime Minister, Mrs Margaret Thatcher, in agreeing with her that sanctions were “immoral” and “utterly repugnant.” The Archbishop-elect of Cape Town, the Rt. Rev. Desmond Tutu, said he found Mr Reagan’s address sickening. “The West, for my part, can go to hell ... I found the speech nauseating/’?/’he said. ..

The American Secretary of State, Mr George Shultz, was scheduled to be the first Administration official to face an angry Congress on the South Africa issue when he testifies at Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearings today.