S. Africa Bars U.S., Canadian Clergymen

The government refused Friday to allow nine American and Canadian clergymen to visit South Africa, accusing them and the U.S. National Council of Churches of having close ties with terrorist groups.

Christoffel Botha, the minister of home affairs, said in a statement here that he had denied the group entry visas because of what he called the council’s “close links with terrorist organizations, amongst others with the African National Congress,” the major guerrilla organization fighting minority white rule here.

Botha said the National Council of Churches, whose president, Bishop Philip Cousin, was to lead the group, “has preconceived ideas concerning South Africa, and thus it is doubtful whether the visit would in any way contribute to an unbiased opinion regarding South Africa and its problems.”

Botha acted after a U.S. congressional delegation returned home from a visit here last week and called for tougher economic sanctions against South Africa to help bring an end to apartheid. The South African government sees a new, church-led campaign against apartheid starting in the United States, officials here said, and Botha is determined “not to provide it with any ammunition,” as one official remarked.

Church Representatives

The church group included representatives of the Baptist, Episcopal, Lutheran, Methodist and Reformed churches in the United States, as well as the United Church of Canada. The clergymen, like the congressional delegation, had been invited by the South African Council of Churches, one of the strongest foes of apartheid.

“If the South African government has nothing to hide, for instance what is happening daily in our black townships, why then ban the church leaders?” the Rev. C.F. Beyers Naude, general secretary of the South African Council of Churches, commented.

South African officials, meanwhile, met here with representatives of the tiny, black-ruled mountain kingdom of Lesotho, on which South Africa has imposed a virtual blockade that it says is aimed at black guerrillas.

Neil van Heerden, deputy director general of the South African Foreign Ministry and head of its Africa department, said after a day of talks that his government is insisting on the closure of all African National Congress offices in Lesotho, whatever their size or function, and the expulsion of all congress members as the basic condition for lifting the blockade.

Talks Inconclusive

Van Heerden said a firm commitment from Lesotho to oust the congress is “the bottom line” for ending what South Africa calls “intensified security measures” imposed at the border two weeks ago. The border controls have been tightened to the point where only limited food and other supplies are being allowed into Lesotho from South Africa, which surrounds Lesotho. The daylong talks apparently ended inconclusively with a joint statement acknowledging only that both sides “realized an urgent need to normalize the situation between South Africa and Lesotho.”

Lesotho reportedly agreed to establish a special security committee with South Africa, but took Pretoria’s other demands--the expulsion of the African National Congress and a bilateral pact on security arrangements--back to Maseru, the Lesotho capital, for study over the weekend.

In a radio broadcast from Maseru, Chief Leabua Jonathan, the country’s prime minister, said South Africa’s slow border inspections--trucks are crossing at the rate of only one every 90 minutes--were making “life impossible” for the sick, for businessmen and for visitors.

The speech was Jonathan’s first since paramilitary police surrounded his office just before noon Wednesday for about two hours, giving rise to widespread speculation about an attempted coup.