Nonaligned Nations Urge S. Africa Curbs : Summit Ends After Special Steps Against Apartheid Are OKd

The eighth summit of nonaligned nations, concluding its meeting here Sunday on the doorstep of South Africa, urged countries worldwide to embrace “comprehensive and mandatory sanctions” to stop the “racist regime” in Pretoria.

In virtually the only specific program to emerge from the summit, the 101 member nations agreed to set up a relief fund to shield southern African countries from some of the adverse effects of sanctions and help wean them from their economic dependence on South Africa.

Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe’s prime minister and the new chairman of the Nonaligned Movement, called the fund “the most important achievement of this conference.”

The Nonaligned Movement issued a flurry of declarations as the conference closed shortly before dawn Sunday.

Among other things, the nonaligned leaders:

--Criticized the United States for “state terrorism” against Libya, aggression in Nicaragua, supplying Angolan rebels belonging to the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) and supporting the government in South Africa.

--Appealed to both President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev to “take immediate steps to prevent the outbreak of nuclear war” by agreeing to a plan for nuclear disarmament.

--Called the interest payments on foreign debts “intolerable” for developing countries and suggested that those nations limit their payments to “a percentage of export earnings compatible with the development and economic needs of the country.”

Some Familiar Themes

The resolutions, adopted here by consensus after a week of closed-door debate and negotiation, sounded some familiar themes for the movement. But the fund to help front-line states, known as AFRICA--Action For Resisting Invasion, Colonialism and Apartheid--was applauded by delegates as a significant step for the movement.

“For the first time in the history of the organization we have emerged with a real viable program of action,” Mugabe said Sunday. “This means the nonaligned movement will work vigorously and purposefully to assist us in this region.”

The committee overseeing the fund will be chaired by Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, with Zambian President Kenneth D. Kaunda as vice chairman. It includes representatives from as far away as Yugoslavia, Peru and Argentina.

The United States, criticized by many of the 55 heads of state who attended the summit, was accused in the final declaration of “repeated aggressions and provocations” against Libya that had “seriously endangered peace and security in the region,” according to the political statement adopted by the conference.

It also criticized U.S. support for the rebels in Nicaragua known as contras and especially the recent decision by Congress to approve $100 million in assistance for those forces.

“Reagan and the U.S. Congress must take into account what is being said here,” said Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega. “They are obliged to listen when 101 countries are telling them that their policy is not the right one in my country.”

Ortega had wanted the opportunity to host the next summit, in 1989, but that decision was delayed until the 1988 ministerial meeting. Ortega accused the United States of trying to persuade some members of the Nonaligned Movement to block his bid and instead support Indonesia.

Summit delegates argued late into the night Saturday about who would host the ministerial meeting in 1988. North Korea was favored by many members, but six countries, reportedly sympathetic to the United States, objected strenuously and Cyprus was chosen instead.

Although working sessions of the summit ran late each night, the final resolutions deviated little from the drafts proposed at the beginning of the conference.

The summit called for a cease-fire in the six-year-long war between two of its members, Iran and Iraq, and condemned certain member states for “continued military and nuclear collaboration” with Israel.

Members of the Nonaligned Movement account for two-thirds of the world’s population, and one of the most important issues to many of those countries is the growing debts they have to foreign lenders, such as the World Bank.

The delegates considered several proposals for dealing with the debt crisis. Cuba’s Fidel Castro suggested that creditors cancel the debts on the grounds that they were unrecoverable. Madagascar proposed a 10-year moratorium on interest payments.

The final economic declaration, however, relied on a proposal by Peru President Alan Garcia. He suggested that countries should pay only a fixed percentage of their export earnings in debt service.

Developing nations owe $812 billion, and the net interest paid on that debt has risen to $54 billion a year, according to Mugabe.

In its special declaration on southern Africa, the conference called comprehensive sanctions “the only peaceful option to compel the racist Pretoria regime to abandon apartheid.” It also asked nonaligned countries to increase financial assistance to the liberation groups fighting apartheid.

The summit also suggested increasing pressure on Western powers to impose sanctions, and it said foreign ministers from some member countries would travel to Washington, London, Tokyo and Bonn to argue for economic action against South Africa.

Countries in the region are heavily dependent on South Africa for trading routes, imports and exports. The conference declaration accused South Africa of using “state terrorism, military occupation, blackmail and armed bandits to destabilize” its neighbors in southern Africa.