Apartheid opponents denounce U.K. Embassy

Press, 1 April 1989, Page 11

Apartheid opponents denounce U.K. Embassy

NZPA-Reuter

Johannesburg

Anti-apartheid groups have bitterly denounced the British Embassy in Pretoria for refusing assistance to six black activists who sought refuge there. The six, all former political detainees, walked out of the Embassy after 24 hours yesterday complaining at the treatment they had received after entering the mission to. protest against South African Government restrictions on their activities. '

They said Embassy officials refused them food, water and blankets and denied them toilet facilities.

“It is deplorable and regrettable that the British Embassy did not give us proper sanctuary,” one of the six told reporters outside the mission.

Anti-apartheid leaders accused the Embassy of calling on the South African police to help evict the six, five men and a woman.

“We note with deep concern that the staff of the Embassy sought help from the South African police in an attempt to evict the six, and offered them no assistance whatsoever,” Murphy Morobe, a spokesman for the Mass Democratic Movement told a news conference in Johannesburg. “Instead of trying to bully these democrats into the hands of the apartheid police, we believe the

British Government should do all in its power to ensure that their restriction orders, and those of all others restricted, are lifted,” Mr Morobe said. The Mass Democratic Movement represents affiliates of scores of banned anti-apartheid organisations and the country’s biggest trade union group, the Congress of South African Trade Unions. The British Embassy’s tough line with the six contrasted with other diplomatic missions in South Africa, which have given refuge to activists seeking sanctuary from arbitrary arrest.

A seventh activist, Simon Ntombela, who escaped from detention in the port of Durban on Wednesday, has been granted temporary sanctuary in the United States Consulate in Johannesburg. A British Embassy spokesman said the six had been told that the British Government could not make effective representations to Pretoria over their release as long as they remained in the Embassy.

“We therefore welcome the decision to leave,” the spokesman said. “We have campaigned to secure the release of many detainees in South Africa, including making specific representations on one of those who has been in the Embassy,” said John Sawers, first secretary at the British Embassy in Cape Town.