
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, April 16, 1991                   TAG: 9104160229
SECTION: NATL/INTL                    PAGE: A-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: The New York Times
DATELINE: PARIS                                LENGTH: Medium

EUROPEAN SANCTIONS ON S. AFRICA ENDED

Ignoring appeals from the African National Congress, the 12-nation European Community agreed Monday to lift its remaining economic sanctions against South Africa in response to the Pretoria government's moves to dismantle apartheid.

Meeting in Luxembourg, community foreign ministers said the move would result in ending a 5-year-old ban on imports of gold coins, iron and steel from South Africa. Last December, the ministers revoked a prohibition against new investments in South Africa.

Although the nations of the community still are bound by the U.N. embargo on arms sales to South Africa, Monday's action marks a new step toward South Africa's reincorporation into the world economy. In 1985, the year before European sanctions were adopted, South Africa exported some $700 million worth of gold coins, iron, and steel to community countries.

In Washington, a State Department official said the South African government still must fulfill two conditions - freeing all political prisoners and repealing laws that classify people by race - before American sanctions can be lifted under the measure by which Congress applied them.

Washington's sanctions are wider than the European Community's. They included a ban on the export to South Africa of crude oil, petroleum products, munitions, and computers and computer services to security services. And the United States continues to ban new investment in South Africa.

The European Community's decision on Monday was signaled last February when community officials told Pretoria that remaining sanctions would be lifted as soon as South Africa proposed legislation to repeal important apartheid laws. The South African Parliament is expected to approve this legislation in July.

Last week, however, the secretary general of the African National Congress, Alfred Nzo, urged the European Community to maintain its sanctions, arguing that the apartheid system was still in place. Many members of the European Parliament also spoke out against Monday's community move.

But the foreign ministers were reportedly unanimous in supporting the lifting of sanctions and in denying the European Parliament an opportunity to debate the issue. Community officials said the ministers argued that they had exclusive authority to decide about the sanctions.

At the meeting on Monday in Luxembourg, which holds the rotating presidency of the community, foreign ministers also agreed to press for a war crimes trial for President Saddam Hussein of Iraq, accusing him of aggression against Kuwait, using chemical weapons against civilians and condoning genocide against the Kurds.

European officials said that, after Germany's foreign minister, Hans-Dietrich Genscher, made the proposal, it was agreed that Luxembourg's foreign minister, Jacques Poos, would raise the issue with the U.N. secretary general, Javier Perez de Cuellar, when they meet today.

by CNB