Pretoria Accepts UN Report on Crisis

FOREIGN Minister Roelof (Pik) Botha said yesterday South Africa's white government accepted a United Nations report recommending ways to halt political violence and urging a resumption of talks on nonracial rule.

The report was prepared by UN Special Envoy Cyrus Vance following a visit to South Africa in late July and was approved by UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali on Aug. 6.

Mr. Botha regretted the Security Council had not yet reached a consensus on the report.

Recommendations accepted in principle by the government included broad investigations into the country's security forces and black guerrilla movements, and the idea of a general amnesty. Pretoria also accepted 30 or so UN observers to be posted at strategic locations around the country. Botha said recommendations in the UN report would have to be discussed with all parties concerned.

Constitutional Development Minister Roelf Meyer, the government's chief negotiator in talks for a transitional government leading to nonracial rule, said he expected discussions with Nelson Mandela's African National Congress (ANC) and other parties to resume soon.

The ANC pulled out of the talks in June following a massacre of 43 blacks in Boipatong township south of Johannesburg.

Supreme Court Justice Richard Goldstone is looking into the killings as part of a broader inquiry into violence which has claimed thousands of lives over the past few years.

Botha said details of investigations into the security forces would have to be worked out with other concerned groups. But he added the Goldstone inquiry might look into how the police could "relate better to society."

The ANC accuses white-led police and the military of fomenting township unrest to perpetuate white rule.

Asked about a general amnesty, Justice Minister Kobie Coetsee said he considered Mr. Vance's recommendations were related to solving the problem of violence.