Botha Condemns Sanctions--’Cannot Solve Our Problems’

President Pieter W. Botha today condemned the imposition of limited sanctions by President Reagan, saying “sanctions cannot solve our problems.”

The white-minority government had launched a last-minute bid to stall the threatened U.S. sanctions, saying economic restrictions could incite more of the racial violence that has killed about 700 people in the last year and would do more harm to neighboring countries than to South Africa itself.

‘Won’t Be Coerced’

Botha said his white-minority government is committed to reform of apartheid racial laws but warned, “We will not be coerced by those who seek to monopolize power.

“Sanctions cannot solve our problems,” he said. “Punitive sanctions, however selective, do not select their victims.

“None of the protagonists of sanctions have indicated what responsibility they will assume for those who will suffer.”

Mandela Visit

Meanwhile today, the government said it will let Winnie Mandela, wife of imprisoned black leader Nelson Mandela, visit her husband after reports he might be ill.

Also today, a new poll showed that almost three out of four urban blacks support divestiture to end apartheid, under which 5 million whites govern 24 million voteless blacks.

Before Reagan spoke, Deputy Foreign Minister Louis Nel warned anew that U.S. Congress members voting for sanctions must accept “moral culpability” for making blacks suffer under sanctions against South Africa, which he called “the goose that laid the golden egg.”