S. Africa confederacy plan denied

A South African government official has denied the existence of a plan to change the white-ruled Republic of South Africa into a confederacy consisting of a white state and several black states, Monitor correspondent Gary Thatcher writes.

Dr. Pieter Koomhof, the government's minister of cooperation and development, told the South African Broadcasting Corporation, "I've never heard of such a plan, and I'm absolutely convinced that it can't be true. [It's] never been discussed in my presence at any level."

Earlier, this newspaper carried a report of a new blueprint for South Africa, currently being studied by the country's white rulers, to create a confederation loosely linking a white-ruled South Africa w ith a number of tribal reserves, called "homelands."