2 Congressional Groups Denied S. African Visas

In the sharpest display yet of its anger over the U.S. imposition of economic sanctions this year, the South African government Tuesday refused to permit two groups of American congressmen to visit the country next month.

Roelof F. (Pik) Botha, the South African foreign minister, informed the new U.S. ambassador, Edward J. Perkins, of his government’s decision after Perkins requested a meeting to “express dismay over the apparent decision and to urge reconsideration if the visas are in fact refused,” the U.S. Embassy said.

Botha said his government is denying entry visas to the 20 American congressmen and their aides, and he denounced one of the delegation leaders as perhaps his country’s greatest enemy.

“To think that we must welcome here a number of legislators who have just passed legislation punishing South Africa in the most vindictive way and to allow them to . . . investigate and evaluate the effect of the punishment they meted out to us--that is a bit far-fetched,” Botha told state radio.

The South African government has no doubt, Botha added, that the U.S. Congress plans to impose more punitive measures on the country, regardless of what the two congressional delegations might find here, and thus sees no reason to cooperate with them.

Botha then bitterly attacked Rep. Howard Wolpe (D-Mich.), the chairman of the Africa subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the leader of one of the delegations, who was active in the campaign for U.S. economic sanctions as a way of weakening apartheid and bringing majority rule to South Africa.

“I do not think you will find anywhere in the world a man who is more vicious and vindictive against this country than that particular gentleman, not even in the Kremlin,” Botha said of Wolpe.

In Washington, Wolpe said Tuesday that the denial of visas is “simply another indication of the sharply deteriorating political situation in South Africa,” the Associated Press reported.

The South African government must realize that negotiations toward ending apartheid, South Africa’s system of racial segregation and minority white rule, are “the only way a terrible blood bath can be avoided in South Africa,” the congressman said.

Foreign Minister Botha also ruled out any special flights by U.S. military aircraft to bring the congressmen or any other American officials to South Africa. “How can I let them fly by American military aircraft here to my country just after they denied our local commercial airline landing rights?” he asked.

Bars Resupply Flights

And he declared that his government will no longer permit an American military aircraft to resupply a small civilian satellite-tracking station operated here by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration--unless Washington first permits South African military aircraft to fly to the United States despite sanctions legislation ending direct air links and prohibiting any military cooperation.

The foreign minister originally announced his government’s decision on state radio Monday night, but the U.S. Embassy withheld comment until it could be verified. In their Tuesday meeting, Botha told Ambassador Perkins that he could hardly believe that the congressmen expected to get his government’s cooperation in assessing the impact of the sanctions, state radio reported.

“When they had ample time prior to the adoption of sanctions to test opinion in this country on the question of sanctions and to evaluate the damage it would cause in southern Africa as a whole and the negative impact it would have on the negotiation process, they expressed no interest at all,” he said.

The congressmen, who voted for the sanctions earlier this year, “have through their anti-South African attitude and pronouncements encouraged the instigators of violence in South Africa to continue with their violence,” Botha added.

U.S. to Protest Decisions

The United States intends to protest the decisions vigorously and to urge South Africa to reconsider them, U.S. Embassy spokeswoman Elizabeth B. Pryor said later. Other U.S. diplomats expressed concern that “our relations with South Africa are worse than they have been in years and years,” as one put it, “and what’s worrying is that seems to suit the (Pretoria) government just fine.”

The South African government, in fact, wants Americans to be aware, officials in Pretoria commented, that the congressional action imposing a broad range of economic sanctions on this country will have immediate and serious repercussions for U.S. interests here, starting with sharply reduced political influence but extending to other areas as well.

Possible closure of the small American satellite-tracking station is understood to be only one of “a very long list of reprisals” now under consideration by Pretoria. Other measures are said to include curtailment of the large U.S. aid program here, particularly its grants to black community activists but perhaps also extending to the scholarships given black university students.