Britain Shifts Stand, Agrees to Meeting With Tambo

In a major policy reversal, the British government Monday invited African National Congress President Oliver Tambo to meet with a government minister later this week.

The invitation to Tambo for a meeting with Foreign Office Minister of State Lynda Chalker was viewed as a significant softening of Britain’s position toward his black nationalist organization, which is leading the armed struggle against the South African white-led minority government.

Although Tambo met last year with members of the British Parliament, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher had consistently refused any ministerial level contact unless the congress agreed to renounce violence, a step that it has rejected.

Secretary of State George P. Shultz was asked at a Singapore press conference today about the British initiative, and he indicated that the United States would consider a similar gesture, but he stopped short of proposing it.

“We are interested in whatever can be done to move toward a reduction of violence and a start of genuine negotiations,” Shultz said.

Tambo, who last week called on blacks to prepare for war in their struggle for equality and power, is in London to meet with members of Parliament representing the more moderate wing of Thatcher’s own Conservative Party.

A Foreign Office spokesman said that if Tambo accepted the invitation, Chalker would convey the need to resolve the South African conflict through negotiations.

On a television program here Monday, Tambo reiterated a call for economic sanctions against South Africa, warning that failure to impose them would ensure what most people want to avoid. “It has been called a bloodbath,” he stated.

The British decision to meet Tambo came only 11 days after a prestigious group of Commonwealth personalities issued a report praising South African black leaders, such as Tambo, and warning that only immediate economic and political pressure on the South African government would avert the worst bloodbath since World War II.

The invitation appeared to be part of a broader softening of Britain’s resistance to implementing further economic and political measures against South Africa, a softening generated in part by the Commonwealth report’s alarming conclusions.

The report’s description of an intransigent South African government and the high quality of black nationalist leaders has brought mounting pressure on Thatcher both domestically and from nearly all members of the 49-nation Commonwealth to drop her opposition to sanctions.

In a rare intrusion into politics, Queen Elizabeth II is believed to have counseled Thatcher not to undertake any action that might lead to a breakup of the Commonwealth. While the weekly consultations between the queen and the prime minister are strictly confidential, Commonwealth unity is known to be one of the few issues in which the queen previously has become involved.