S. Africa to Resist U.S. Pressure for Talks With Blacks, Foreign Minister Says; Congress Assailed

Foreign Minister Roelof F. (Pik) Botha warned Tuesday that South Africa’s white-led minority government would firmly resist further American and other foreign pressure to push it into negotiations with its black majority on the country’s political future.

“It is time to show the American Congress that they will not determine our future,” Botha told foreign correspondents here, dismissing both the effects of U.S. economic sanctions and the possibility of renewed foreign mediation in this country’s deepening crisis.

“The congressional legislation (imposing sanctions) was an outside intrusion trying to solve our problems, and almost any South African will reject any attempt to tell us what we need to do,” Botha said. “There is a strong anti-American feeling in this country now . . . and in this way the United States has become more and more irrelevant in the whole of southern Africa.”

Congressmen ‘Vengeful’

Describing the American lawmakers as “vengeful,” “ignorant” and “hopeless,” Botha said he blames them for much of the continued civil unrest here. “Through their sanctions, they have discouraged black moderates from coming forward to negotiate,” he said, “and they have encouraged the radicals in their violence.”

Botha’s declaration seemed to end what little remained of the Reagan Administration’s policy of “constructive engagement,” which was based on U.S. efforts to persuade Pretoria to speed the dismantling of apartheid and engage in discussions that would bring a “government based on the consent of the governed.”

President Pieter W. Botha, opening the annual session of Parliament here last week, said his government was reviewing “both the content and direction” of its foreign policy, indicating that significant changes are likely.

“No foreign nation, nor the United Nations or any other international organization has the slightest right whatsoever to meddle in our domestic affairs,” the president declared. “It is a principle of international law and conduct that no self-respecting, sovereign country should be subservient to any other.”

Foreign Minister Botha, who is not related to the president, declined to say what policy changes are planned but referred to South Africa’s refusal last month to permit two groups of U.S. congressmen to visit the country as an indication of its tougher stance toward “outside interference.”

Defies Sanctions

Speaking of the coming parliamentary election, the foreign minister told foreign correspondents at a government-arranged briefing, “We should send a strong signal to the outside world that the white electorate stands behind the government and that there is no way they can break us through sanctions.”

A substantial victory by the ruling National Party, Botha added, could also “persuade some black leaders to come forward and negotiate . . . because here is the element in the white community with which they must deal.”

As outlined by Botha, the Nationalists’ strategy to resolve the country’s problems is based on negotiations--but negotiations from a position of strength.

The government’s first priority, the foreign minister made clear, is an end of the political violence that has raged through much of the country over the past 2 1/2 years , and the restoration of law and order.

Fall in Unrest Reported

In Pretoria, the Bureau for Information said Tuesday that the level of civil unrest as measured in the number of reported incidents has declined by 70% in the second half of last year after the government’s assumption of emergency powers on June 12.

In the second half of 1986, police recorded an average of 20 incidents a day countrywide, compared with 68 in the first six months of the year. The number of people killed dropped from 3.7 a day to 1.4, according to the bureau, which said that security forces were responsible for about a third of the deaths, with most of the others resulting from black political infighting.

Assessing the effect of the state of emergency in curbing political violence here, the bureau commented, “While the first goal, namely the restoration of law and order, has been achieved to a high degree in most (black) townships, normality, the second goal, has only been restored in part.”

The second issue on which the National Party will campaign for the May 6 election, Foreign Minister Botha said, will be a rejection of all “foreign interference,” particularly pressure to negotiate unconditionally with the outlawed African National Congress, the principal guerrilla group fighting minority white rule here.