Namibia Suspends Timetable for Independence Over Clashes

The South African-appointed government of Namibia declared the U.N. timetable for the territory’s independence effectively suspended Friday, citing a week of fierce border clashes between guerrillas and security forces that killed more than 280 people.

Officials said more paramilitary troops had been activated to guard against reported guerrilla movements on farmland owned by whites. They said a curfew would be reimposed on the northern Ovambo region where the fighting erupted.

The territory’s South African-appointed administrator general, Louis Pienaar, said the continuing incursions of South-West Africa People’s Organization (SWAPO) guerrillas from Angola had made it “impossible to contemplate” elections scheduled under U.N. Security Council Resolution 435.

“One is therefore faced with a de facto suspension of that resolution,” he said.

The announcement came only hours before U.N. Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar was to convene the Security Council to discuss the crisis.

South African Foreign Minister Roelof F. (Pik) Botha told a news conference he sent a letter Friday to Perez de Cuellar in which he wrote, “It is with great dismay that I must report to you that the situation has further deteriorated.”

Botha said he hoped an urgent meeting set for today at a farm outside Windhoek, involving U.S., Soviet, Cuban, Angolan and South African officials, would lead to “agreement on practical steps to be taken to stop the unnecessary and senseless killings started exclusively by SWAPO.”