European Effort Toward Dialogue in South Africa Suffers a Setback

A European attempt to promote dialogue in South Africa suffered a setback Monday when British Foreign Secretary Geoffrey Howe postponed plans to go to Pretoria during his visit to southern Africa this week.

Rebuffed by both black and white leaders in South Africa, Howe said he will leave for Zambia and Zimbabwe today to urge talks rather than violence in the area.

He said the South African government is willing to receive him later this month. “The question is not whether, but when,” Howe said in a British Broadcasting Corp. interview.

‘Humiliating Snub’

Denis Healey, foreign affairs spokesman of the opposition Labor Party, said in the House of Commons that Howe’s mission would have been fruitless because Anglican Bishop Desmond Tutu, a leader of the anti-apartheid struggle, has refused to meet with him and the Pretoria government has given him “a humiliating snub.”

Howe said that in Zambia and Zimbabwe he hopes to meet with leaders of the African National Congress, the outlawed South African guerrilla movement, and will stress to them that talks with the Pretoria government are preferable to violence.

“I shall be seeing if it is possible to pave the way for a dialogue of that kind,” he said.

Pretoria Cites Hostility

No reason was given for Pretoria’s delay in agreeing to the Howe mission, but South Africa’s state-run radio indicated Monday that Howe could face hostility if he goes there.

A radio commentary said Howe “should not be surprised if he encounters a great deal more suspicion or even hostility than he might have done just a few months ago.”

Howe is chairman of the 12-nation European Communities’ foreign ministers council.

A Common Market summit in The Hague on June 27 decided to send Howe to southern Africa “in a further effort to establish conditions in which the necessary dialogue (between the white South African government and black leaders) can commence.”