Rightists, Apartheid Foes Criticize New South Africa Press Curbs

Politicians on the far right and a pro-government newspaper joined anti-apartheid leaders Saturday in questioning the government’s claim that harsh new controls on the press are justified by the threat of a terrorist offensive.

The Citizen, a Johannesburg daily that supports the government, accepted President Pieter W. Botha’s assertion that a revolutionary uprising is imminent. But it said curbing reports on security matters would foster rumors and prevent the public from being fully informed.

Botha told the nation on television Friday night that the crackdown on the press and opposition groups was meant to counter a planned campaign of terrorist attacks by the outlawed African National Congress and its supporters.

Jaap Marais, leader of the far-right Herstigte Nasionale (Reconstituted National) Party, said in a statement published Saturday that Botha was dramatizing the security threat in preparation for an expected election among white voters next year.

Sees Image Boosting

“What Mr. Botha said about the ANC and the Communist Party is very old news, greatly overdramatized,” Marais said. “Mr. Botha’s speech was more to do with boosting the government’s image in advance of an election rather than about the security situation.”

Another far right spokesman, Tom Langley of the Conservative Party, called Botha’s evidence “not impressive” and said the crackdown “looked to me like a prelude to some political maneuver” by the president’s National Party.

On the other side of the political spectrum, Colin Eglin, leader of the anti-apartheid Progressive Federal Party, said Botha’s emphasis on the purported security threat “is one of the most unconvincing red herrings I’ve heard from a political leader in many years.”

Eglin said many documents shown on television as accompaniment to Botha’s speech dated from an African National Congress meeting in June, 1985.

He said Botha’s remarks about the seriousness of the threats of violence “did not justify the massive clampdown on the press.”

“What was still missing,” Eglin said, “was any convincing statement that he (Botha) or his government had any meaningful plan to bring about a political solution to the problems of this country.”

Censorship Curbs Press

Censorship rules imposed Thursday bar unauthorized reporting on security force actions, treatment of detainees and various anti-apartheid activities such as rent, consumer and school boycotts.

The regulations prohibit anyone from making “subversive statements” and control reporting on peaceful as well as violent opposition. For the first time, reports on some matters require official approval before publication.

The United Democratic Front, the country’s largest anti-apartheid coalition and a major target of the crackdown, issued a statement Saturday responding to the restrictions. The government’s media center refused authorization for the contents of the statement to be reported.

On Friday, acting under the new regulations, the police commissioner for the East Rand region east of Johannesburg prohibited major anti-apartheid groups and their members from engaging in a wide range of political activities.

These activities include calling for release of detainees, urging an end to the six-month-old state of emergency, calling for withdrawal of troops from black townships, endorsing boycotts and urging Parliament members to resign.

Dictatorship Charge

The End Conscription Campaign, an anti-draft organization that opposes deployment of white conscripts in black townships, said in a statement Friday that the new restrictions “dispel any doubts that the National Party government has effectively become a Latin American-style, one-party dictatorship, bent on retaining power by any means.”

By law and custom, apartheid establishes a racially segregated society in which 25 million blacks have no vote in national affairs. The 5 million whites control the economy and maintain separate districts, schools and health services.