Namibia Groups Also Got Secret S. African Aid

Foreign Minister Roelof F. (Pik) Botha disclosed Thursday that the government tried to sway 1989 elections in neighboring Namibia with secret aid to anti-rebel groups, widening a political scandal over covert operations.

Botha also defended the use of secret funds to the Inkatha Freedom Party as “the right thing” despite the subsequent controversy that could disrupt power-sharing talks with Inkatha’s main rival, the African National Congress.

Botha, who has admitted that he authorized some of the funds to Inkatha, vowed to remain in office.

“If I must do it again, I will do it again in exactly the same way,” said Botha.

“I am not apologizing for it,” he said on state television. “We did the right thing.”

Botha said his department had spent about $28.5 million in covert funds during the past five or six years to combat international sanctions, which Inkatha opposes. He declined to give further details.

In the latest admission of government secret funding programs, Botha said his government sent $36 million to political groups in Namibia in an unsuccessful bid to defeat black guerrillas.

He said funds went to the Democratic Turnhalle Alliance and at least six other Namibian groups opposed to the South-West Africa People’s Organization, or SWAPO.

South Africa, which ruled Namibia until 1990, had been locked in a long guerrilla war with SWAPO and funded rival parties when it agreed to elections under a U.N.-supervised peace plan.

Botha defended the funding, saying it was to boost democracy and that SWAPO received much more money from other sources.

The Turnhalle Alliance, now the main Namibian opposition party, also defended the aid.

There was no immediate comment from the Namibian government.

Since the first disclosures of payments to Inkatha last week, the government has admitted paying $90,000 to fund Inkatha rallies in 1989 and 1990 and that $535,000 was given to an Inkatha-aligned labor movement beginning in the mid-1980s.