Call for imposition of mandatory sanctions against Pretoria.

The Special Committee on decolonization, meeting in extraordinary session at Tunis from 13 to 17 May, adopted a consensus decision on Namibia calling on the Security Council to "respond positively to the overwhelming demand of the international community by imposing forthwith comprehensive mandatory sanctions" against South Africa under Chapter VII of the Charter.

The Special Committee also adopted unanimously a number of recommendations stemming from two regional seminars held earlier this year (Port Moresby, 4-7 March; Havana, 8-10 April), and approved a series of proposals relating to petitions, information and assistance. (For an account of the Havana seminar, see the following story.)

The extraordinary session, together with the two regional seminars, was part of a year-long programme of activities to commemorate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the 1960 Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples.

By its consensus decision on Namibia, the Committee strongly condemned South Africa's illegal occupation of NamibiaM its "brutal repression" of Namibians and its efforts to destroy the Territory's national unity and territorial integrity, as well as its persistent refusal to comply with relevant United Nationsl resolutions and decisions. It reaffirmed that Security Council resolution 435 (1978)--without modification, qualification and pre-condition--remained the only acceptable basis for a peaceful settlement of the Namibian question.

The Committee rejected attempts by the United States and South Africa to establish a linkage between Namibian independence and any extraneous and irrelevant issue, in particular the withdrawal of Cuban forces from Angola. It appealed to all States "to intensity their political, diplomatic, material and military support" for the South West Africa People's Organization (SWAPO). It deplored the continuing collaboration of "certain Western and other coutries" with South Africa in the political, economic, military and nuclear fields, and condemned and rejected the policy of so-called "constructive engagement".

The Committee condemned the exploitation of Namibian uranium by State-owned or State-controlled corporations, and demanded that those States whose transnational corporations continued to operate in Namibia under the illegal South African administration comply with pertinent United Nations resolutions by ensuring the immediate withdrawal of all investments from Namibia and ending co-operation by such corporations with the illegal South African Administration.

In adopting recommendations stemming from the two regional seminars, the Special Committee requested all States to withhold assistance of any kind from South Africa until the right of Namibians to self-determination and independence within a united and integrated Namibia had been restored and apartheid eradicated, and to refrain from taking any action which might imply recognition of the legitimacy of the illegal occupation of Namibia.

The Committee reiterated its strong support for the legitimacy of the struggle of the peoples under colonial and alien domination to exercise their right to self-determination and independence "by all available means at their disposal".

The Committee also condemned the continuing activities of foreign economic and other interests which were impeding the implementation of the Declaration; condemned all military activities by colonial Powers in Territories under their administration which were detrimental to the rights and interests of the colonial peoples concerned, and called upon the colonial Powers to terminate such activities and eliminate such military bases; urged the administering Powers to take all necessary measures to ensure that the colonial Territories were not used for nuclear testing and to ban the dumping of nuclear waste and materials in the areas adjacent to those Territories; urged the administering Powers to take effective measures to safeguard and guarantee te inalienable right of the peoples of the colonial Territories to their natural resources, and to take all necessary steps to preserve and promote the cultures, languages and heritage of the indigenous populations of the Territories concerned.

Statements were made during the session by, among others, all 24 Committee members, Tunisian Foreign Minister Beji Caid Essebsi, Chairman of the Special Committee Abdul G. Koroma (Sierra Leone), and Ghanaian Foreign Minister Obed Asamoah in his capacity as the Chairman of the Liberation Committee of the Organization of African Unity. Rafeeuddin Ahmed, Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, Trusteeship and Decolonization, read out a message from Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar.