Botha Rebuffs Howe’s Bid for S. Africa Peace : Rejects Briton’s Call to Free Mandela and Deal With Rebels, Denounces World ‘Interference’

PRETORIA, South Africa —  British Foreign Secretary Geoffrey Howe, ending a weeklong effort to promote political dialogue in South Africa, told the Pretoria government on Tuesday that there is little hope for peace here unless imprisoned black nationalist leader Nelson Mandela is freed unconditionally and the ban against the African National Congress is lifted so it can negotiate the country’s future.

President Pieter W. Botha immediately and firmly rejected both proposals. His government, Botha declared, will not release Mandela or talk with the outlawed African National Congress unless they first renounce the use of violence in the struggle against apartheid, and the ANC severs its ties with the South African Communist Party.

If this stand invites international economic sanctions “until our backs are against the wall,” Botha said, “we will have no alternative but to stand up in self-respect and say to the world, ‘You won’t force South Africans to commit national suicide.’ ”

Denounces Pressure

Botha, speaking later at a separate press conference, denounced the mounting international pressure on South Africa as interference in its internal affairs. “Leave South Africa to the South Africans,” he declared, “and with God’s help our country can go forward in faith.”

The Howe mission, undertaken on behalf of the 12-nation European Communities and with the strong backing of the United States, thus ended in failure, increasing the likelihood that economic sanctions will be imposed.

Howe said that he has strongly urged the Botha government, the politicians, businessmen and others he met here and leaders in neighboring countries to reconsider the proposal for negotiations made by a special Commonwealth commission and rejected by Pretoria.

“What is needed,” Howe said at a press conference after a final meeting with Botha, “is that the South African government should agree to release Mandela and other political prisoners, to un-ban the African National Congress and other political parties and to enter into peaceful dialogue--against a matching commitment from the ANC to call a halt to violence and to enter into peaceful dialogue as well. In short, each side needs to make an offer that the other cannot refuse.”

The “key moves” will have to be made by the South African government, Howe said, but he added, “The responses I have received have not yet enabled me to proclaim that I have made the progress I would have liked.

‘Leap of Imagination’

“I have made very clear the scale of the leap of imagination that has to be made,” Howe said, “and it hasn’t yet been made.”

Howe then left for London to brief Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher before her meeting this weekend with six other Commonwealth leaders on the South Africa question.

Botha reaffirmed his government’s long-professed commitment to step-by-step political, social and economic reforms, including an end to the apartheid system of racial separation and minority white rule.

“However, we believe that dialogue should not inevitably have the end result of jeopardizing the self-determination of the (different racial) groups and communities in our multicultural country,” he continued, “but that it must be an instrument of hope, peace and freedom for all.”

If the African National Congress, for 25 years the principal guerrilla group fighting white rule, does not end its armed struggle in favor of negotiations, Botha said, “there are enough authentic and representative (black) leaders in this country with whom we can iron out our future (political) dispensation. . . . We are making headway.”

Botha said he has received a good response to the government’s proposal to convene a multiracial national council to discuss further reforms and later draft a new constitution. “I am optimistic that we will make the necessary progress,” he said.

Howe Opposes Sanctions

Howe said he is willing to continue his effort to establish a dialogue if the European Communities, the Commonwealth and the United States believe it worthwhile. But he acknowledged that international pressure is increasing rapidly for punitive economic sanctions against South Africa--measures that he said would not work and could make it even more difficult to start negotiations.

“Re-presentation of the same message will remain necessary, with as much patience and understanding as the world can command, so that eventually it will come through,” Howe said. “I can well understand why those most directly affected in South Africa can become profoundly impatient, but we have to go on pressing the case.”

Why, Botha countered, does the world not give his government credit for the reforms already undertaken, and why is only South Africa punished and not other countries with problems among their racial, ethnic and religious groups?

Wants Credit for Effort

“It would only be reasonable to expect members of the international community, given their own experiences and those of others, to appreciate that we have committed ourselves to something that has often proved impossible or that, at the very least, has taken centuries to achieve elsewhere,” Botha said.

“Yet, instead of encouragement and cooperation, we find that Western democracies and totalitarian states alike are neither prepared to acknowledge the sincerity of our efforts nor grant us the opportunity to achieve our goals.”

Botha offered to participate in a joint meeting between the leaders of the European Communities and those of the countries of southern Africa to discuss the region’s problems, including domestic questions. But Howe said he believes that answers to the issues facing this country must be found through internal dialogue, not more international conferences.

5 More Blacks Killed

Meanwhile, five more blacks were reported killed in the unremitting political violence here. The government’s Bureau for Information, now the sole authorized source of news on the civil unrest, said that three men were burned to death--two near Port Elizabeth and one in Soweto outside Johannesburg--by other blacks. According to the bureau, two other men, one 18 and the other 20, were shot and killed by security forces in incidents near Port Elizabeth, where a patrol was fired on and a policeman wounded, and at Hofmeyer, also in eastern Cape province, where youths stoned a patrol.

The bureau also reported that a land mine, the latest in a series believed to have been planted by African National Congress guerrillas, exploded under a security force vehicle near Nelspruit in eastern Transvaal province, but that no one was injured.

The government on Tuesday began closing black high schools in eastern Cape province where classes have been disrupted by student boycotts.

Spokesmen for the Department of Education and Training, which oversees black education, said the schools closed thus far are in Uitenhage, near Port Elizabeth, and in Grahamstown. They declined to say how many will be shut.

Unless students from the closed schools have enrolled at other schools, they will be unable to continue their education until January, when the next school year begins and the closed schools might be reopened.

Tough government measures are being taken to restore order to black schools. Scores of schools will probably be closed, and as many as 350,000 high school students will effectively be expelled if they did not re-register last week. Full details on the number of closures and expulsions will not be announced until the end of this week, spokesmen said.