Britain Lifts South Africa Investment Ban

Britain lifted a ban on new investment in South Africa today and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher dismissed suggestions that Britain stood isolated by acting out of concert with its European Community partners.

Pressed to comment on the British move, Thatcher sounded defiant after talks with Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti.

“I am accused of being out of step and isolated. It is pretty cozy isolation, pretty crowded, judging by the numbers of foreign statesmen who are talking to us. It is very cozy and very crowded being isolated if that is the right word, which it is not,” she told a news conference in a lightly mocking tone.

Britain was alone at this week’s EC foreign ministers’ meeting in Dublin when it confirmed the Thatcher government’s decision to break ranks and lift voluntary sanctions imposed against South Africa in 1986.

The unilateral move was the first step by any country to relax sanctions against Pretoria in response to South African President Frederik W. de Klerk’s reforms and the freeing of black nationalist leader Nelson R. Mandela this month.

Trade and Industry Secretary Nicholas Ridley said in announcing the move in Parliament: “We have made clear our view that the steps President de Klerk has taken have transformed the political climate in South Africa.

“He has opened the way to a peaceful end to apartheid through negotiation. This deserves a constructive response from the international community.”

Ridley also announced an end to a ban on the promotion of tourism to South Africa.

Mandela was among black South African leaders who had urged Thatcher not to lift sanctions against Pretoria until the state of emergency is lifted and apartheid is dismantled.