Kaunda lambastes S.A. peace bid

Press, 26 July 1986, Page 10

Kaunda lambastes S.A. peace bid

NZPA-Reuter Lusaka Zambia’s President, Mr Kenneth Kaunda, has dealt a new and severe blow to attempts by the British Foreign Secretary, Sir Geoffrey Howe, to bring peace to South Africa, accusing him of working to maintain the apartheid system. In a bitter personal attack in front of television cameras, Mr Kaunda accused Britain and the United States yesterday of conspiring to preserve white supremacy in South Africa.

Clearly enraged by Ronald Reagan’s speech earlier this week, in which he ruled out economic sanctions against South Africa, Mr Kaunda accused him and the British Prime Minister, Mrs Margaret Thatcher, of “kissing apartheid.” Sir Geoffrey, who is acting on behalf of the 12nation European Economic Community, firmly denied the assertion.

Later in private, he had told Mr Kaunda that he considered his remarks to be undeserved and uncalled for, and that they should not stand in the way of serious discussions, British officials said.

Mr Kaunda, who has threatened to take Zambia out of the Commonwealth if Britain does not agree to sanctions, said history would not forgive Mrs Thatcher or Mr Reagan. “For you people to kiss that system (apartheid), it is very un-British,” he said.

Sir Geoffrey has indicated that sanctions may be necessary if the South African President, Mr Peter Botha, refuses to release the jailed black nationalist leader, Nelson Mandela, and lift the ban on groups such as the African National Congress.

Sir Geoffrey and Mr Botha will hold a second meeting in South Africa on Tuesday.

A senior British official said Mr Kaunda took a much softer line in his private meeting with Sir Geoffrey, where the two men discussed “steps which may yet be found to open dialogue on South Africa.”

He said Sir Geoffrey recognised that one of Zambia’s few ways of exerting influence on the South African matter was through dramatic public statements that attracted

world attention. In Washington Mr Reagan’s Republican allies in the Senate called yesterday for a new American effort towards South Africa but moved to head off a Democratic attempt to force a quick vote on tough sanctions. "I appeal to the Administration to come forward with some sort of new, credible initiative” to help end apartheid, the Republician Leader, Mr Robert Dole, said in a speech on the Senate floor.

Mr Dole, with many moderates in Mr Reagan’s party, was dismayed that the President failed to announce any new actions in his review of United States policy towards South Africa earlier this week.

Mr Dole endorsed a plan to send a special American envoy to meet black opposition leaders and the Government in an effort to get negotiations off the ground.

Democrats and some Republicans, • were outraged at what they viewed as Mr Reagan’s defiant stance against punitive sanctions and his call for more, not less, invesment in South Africa.