The World - News from Feb. 7, 1989

Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe called for tougher economic sanctions on South Africa and urged the United Nations to increase the strength of its peacekeeping force for Namibia. Mugabe told the eight-nation Commonwealth Committee on South Africa, meeting to seek ways to increase external pressure on Pretoria, that the international campaign for sanctions must be intensified. Several of South Africa’s neighbors are members of the 48-member Commonwealth, an association of Britain and its former colonies. Mugabe applauded the U.S.-brokered peace plan on independence for Namibia. But he said African nations fear attempts to weaken the U.N. role in the territory South Africa has run since World War I.