Clash threatens Namibian peace

Press, 3 April 1989, Page 10

Clash threatens Namibian peace

NZPA-Reuter Windhoek, Namibia A major gun battle between rebel and Government forces yesterday threatened to derail the Namibian peace process only hours after it formally began.

Four members of the United Nations Transition Assistance Group (U.N.T.A.G.), which began supervising independence on Saturday, were ordered to the border with Angola yesterday following South African reports that 38 nationalist guerrillas and two policemen died in the clash.

The South African Foreign Minister, Pik Botha, accused fighters of the South West Africa People’s Organisation (5.W.A.P.0.) of defying a U.N.-sponsored ceasefire, and he threatened to expel U.N.T.A.G. “Unless the Secretary-General makes his position clear on this flagrant violation... the South African Government will be left with no choice but to request U.N.T.A.G. to depart from Namibia until S.W.A.P.O. can be brought to its senses,” Mr Botha said on Saturday.

South African State television later reported that the U.N. Secre-tary-General, Javier Perez de Cuel-

lar, had told Mr Botha the incursion was a severe violation of U.N. resolutions and that he would take immediate steps to prevent further incidents.

Mr De Cuellar said South African security forces should be sent to the border to help police protect local people, the television reported, quoting a statement by Mr Botha.

The British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, making an unscheduled visit to Namibia to add her support to U.N.T.A.G., said the fighting was a “most serious challenge” to the independence process and called for a U.N. report on the incident to be considered by the Security Council.

“It is vital that the whole international community should respond decisively to anything that threatens the agreement on the independence of Namibia,” she said. She told British troops that U.N.T.A.G.’s work could “help to determine the whole future of southern Africa. They stand at the

gateway to peace, to freedom, independence, justice.”

In the first serious border clash since South Africa, Angola and Cuba signed a regional peace agreement last December, Mr Botha said 60 S.W.A.P.O. guerrillas in two groups had crossed into Namibia from Angola.

“S.W.A.P.O.’s written undertaking to the U.N. Secretary General that it would cease all hostile acts as of April 1 is a farce and meaningless,” he said.

Under the peace accord, U.N.T.A.G. will monitor elections in November for a constituent assembly and progress towards eventual independence. At the same time, Cuba has agreed to repatriate 50,000 troops from Angola.

Before news of the clash reached Windhoek, the city was gripped by independence countdown celebrations, with the black township of Katutura seething with celebrating crowds.