Word: botha
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Within hours South Africa demonstrated how seriously it considered the Commonwealth action. "You can rest assured we are not going to take this lying down," declared Foreign Minister Roelof ("Pik") Botha. At a Pretoria press conference he announced what amounted to retaliatory actions. One was a levy on goods transported from South African ports to black states to the north. A cash deposit of 25% will now be required for imported goods bound for Zambia. In addition, a slowdown immediately went into effect at the Beit Bridge crossing between South Africa and Zimbabwe, as officials began a "statistical" study...
...Leader Nelson Mandela and the "unbanning" of the African National Congress, the exiled black political movement, in the hope of heading off sanctions. Howe was rebuffed at every turn, both by black leaders angered at Thatcher's refusal to consider sanctions and by the government of State President P.W. Botha for "direct interference" in South Africa's affairs. By mid-July, Kaunda was threatening to leave the Commonwealth if Thatcher remained adamant. Reports were even circulating that Queen Elizabeth II, the titular head of the Commonwealth, was worried about the possibility of its breakup...
...world: You won't force South Africans to commit national suicide. Leave South Africa to the South Africans." Just as South Africa's black Anglican Archbishop-elect, Desmond Tutu, had told the West to "go to hell" the week before, now it was South Africa's white President, P.W. Botha, saying virtually the same thing. The defiant stands on both sides of the embattled nation's apartheid clash focused on the same subject: sanctions. While Tutu had reacted angrily to Ronald Reagan's attack on the whole notion of employing punitive measures against the Pretoria government, Botha was striking...
...Botha's outburst was directed at British Foreign Secretary Sir Geoffrey Howe, even though his government has been a holdout against the use of sanctions. Howe was winding up a futile week-long attempt to open a dialogue with the key players in South Africa's racial conflict. Despite his good intentions, he had been rudely rebuffed by both sides. As Howe was leaving Pretoria, Botha held his bitter press conference. He dismissed all such mediating efforts as "direct interference in our internal affairs" and part of "this hysterical outcry of certain Western countries against South Africa...
That majority had new cause to complain about government promises of reform. Blacks learned that Botha's act on July 1 abolishing the pass laws that restrict the movement of blacks within the country did not end restrictions on the 4 million blacks in South Africa who are technically residents of four tribal homelands that chose to become so-called independent states: Transkei, Ciskei, Bophuthatswana and Venda. Despite government pledges that they could be granted citizenship in both their homelands and South Africa, they are now treated as aliens who must apply for residence and work permits whenever they move...