Commonwealth Agrees to Condemn S. Africa

The Commonwealth heads of government reached an agreement Sunday strongly condemning South Africa but without any call for mandatory economic sanctions.

The strongly worded seven-page accord was the result of two days of intense negotiation between British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who was determinedly opposed to new sanctions of any sort, and Prime Ministers Brian Mulroney of Canada, Bob Hawke of Australia and Rajiv Gandhi of India.

Although Mulroney called the agreement “a magnificent document . . . that sends a clear signal to Pretoria,” it represented a clear victory for Thatcher’s position. “They have come around to our point of view,” she said Sunday night.

Under the agreement, the Commonwealth, which is a voluntary grouping of Britain and 48 of its former colonies and possessions, demands that South Africa begin immediate steps to dismantle apartheid.

Furthermore, the statement said, South Africa must end its current state of emergency, release jailed black leader Nelson Mandela, permit the legal operation of the outlawed African National Congress and begin talks with blacks and other government opponents “with a view to establishing a non-racial and representative government.”

The leaders said a panel of internationally respected people, including former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau, will be named to begin talks with South Africa on the need to end apartheid.

In calling for increased economic pressure, the agreement gave the appearance of some compromise by Thatcher in that it said the governments agreed not to deal with South Africa in nine specific areas.

Measures Already Imposed

However, with one exception these measures--they were not identified as sanctions, a word never used in the agreement--had already been imposed by most members, including Britain.

In fact, the one new measure, a ban on the import of South Africa’s gold coin, the Krugerrand, was described sarcastically by Thatcher as “a tiny, tiny, tiny” concession. She pointed out that her country bought less than a million dollars a year in Krugerrands.

The other actions called for included a ban on new government loans to the Pretoria government, no government funding for trade missions to South Africa, a ban on the sale of computers that could be used by the South African military or police, a ban on new trade in nuclear energy, oil, arms and military cooperation and discouragement of all cultural and scientific exchanges.

Another section that revealed the split between Britain and the others said that if South Africa doesn’t bend to the Commonwealth’s demands in six months, “we agree to consider the adoption of further measures.”

However, the next sentence said that “some of us would . . . consider” a long list of severe economic measures, including cutting off air links with South Africa and a ban on new investments and trade.

Thatcher underlined the weakness of this section when she pointedly told reporters that “I’m not one of the some.”

Thatcher’s refusal to go any further than she already has in economically punishing South Africa made threats by other Commonwealth nations to act on their own empty gestures. Britain’s nearly $15 billion in South African investments, dwarfs the combined investments of all the other members.