Zimbabwe Threatens to Bolster Sanctions by Seizing South Africa Assets

Prime Minister Robert Mugabe threatened Friday to seize South Africa’s assets in Zimbabwe if South Africa retaliates for sanctions he plans to impose. He said the sanctions will override a preferential trade accord with South Africa.

He also threatened to cut off pensions to 40,000 white emigrants from Zimbabwe who now live in South Africa.

“We have the punch. True, we will suffer, but we will not die as a nation,” he told a news conference.

Mugabe is chairman-designate of the 101-nation Nonaligned Movement, which will hold its triennial meeting here next week. The 62-year-old former guerrilla leader’s remarks increased speculation that he will lead the Nonaligned Movement on a more radical and possibly more anti-Western course. He succeeds Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi of India as chairman when the meeting begins Monday.

Vulnerable to Reprisals

Discussion of South Africa and its apartheid policy of race discrimination is likely to dominate the conference. Zimbabwe will go along with any measures against South Africa the summit approves despite its vulnerability to reprisals, Mugabe said.

A recommended end-of-summit communique drawn up by Zimbabwe calls for mandatory and comprehensive international sanctions, which the United States and Britain have vetoed consistently in the U.N. Security Council.

Mugabe and the leaders of five other Commonwealth nations, including Zambia, agreed to sanctions at a Commonwealth mini-summit Aug. 4-5 in London. Only Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, the seventh leader attending, did not go along.

South Africa, in a move that was widely interpreted as a reprisal against the two black-ruled nations, began border searches of trucks carrying Zimbabwean and Zambian exports. Both landlocked countries ship much of their goods through South Africa. South Africa halted the searches Wednesday.

Hypocrisy Charge

In Pretoria on Friday, South Africa published the latest amendments to the Zimbabwe trade agreement. Accusing Mugabe of hypocrisy, South Africa said the latest agreement was signed while he was at the London mini-summit lobbying for sanctions.

A spokesman for South Africa’s Department of Trade and Industries said: “We had to publish the amendments because there are importers and exporters who conclude contracts on the basis of this agreement.”

The accord was first drawn up in 1964, he said, and it stipulated that either country must give six months notice before pulling out.

“We haven’t received any formal notice from the government of Zimbabwe. . . . We will honor our commitment and I have no doubt the government of Zimbabwe will do so. It’s a responsible government,” he said.

Mugabe said that the pact “was signed before our decision in London, but whatever the agreement says, sanctions will clearly override that.”

Survived Transformation

The trade agreement, made 22 years ago by South Africa and the white government of Rhodesia, had survived the former British colony’s transformation into black-ruled Zimbabwe six years ago despite increasingly hostile relations. Under its terms, Zimbabwe and South Africa charge each other special low customs duties on more than 100 items ranging from textiles to kitchen utensils.

Trade between the two countries totaled $272 million last year with a $58-million favorable balance for South Africa, Zimbabwe’s second-ranking trade partner after Britain.

Sanctions agreed upon in London include ending air links and banning agricultural imports. Mugabe said he expects to implement them this year.

“We know that South Africa in retaliation can adopt measures which will hurt us,” he said, “but we also have a punch which can hurt South Africa. It does trade with the rest of Africa through us. It has vast investments in Zimbabwe. . . . We remit huge dividends.”

Mugabe said Zimbabwe pays $42 million a year to pensioners in South Africa, most of them former members of Rhodesia’s civil service and security forces. Continued pension payments was part of the independence and peace treaty negotiated by Britain.

“We still pay them for fighting us in the past,” Mugabe said.