Prime Minister
As you know, in connection with the United Nations Resolution on Namibia, I have just been seeing United Nations Special Representative, Mr Ahtisaari, together with General Prem Chand who is in charge of the United Nations Forces, together with the Administrator General, seeing them all together.
You will be aware that a very serious incursion has taken place last night across the border from Angola. There have been a large number of people killed and more have been injured. This is a most serious challenge to the authority of the United Nations and to the Agreement and we condemn it totally.
The first task is to establish the facts and the United Nations Secretary General's Special Representative has told me that he will make a very urgent report on the facts, he hopes within twenty-four hours. It will then be for the Javier Perex de CuellarSecretary General to take the necessary action in the light of the report. [end p1]
In the matter of the seriousness, we would expect him to require the Security Council to meet to report what has happened to them and indeed we would support that and our Ambassador in New York will be so instructed.
It is vital that the whole international community should respond decisively to anything which threatens the Agreement on the Independence of Namibia. In other words, it is essential that the authority of the United Nations should be upheld and that the Agreement should be implemented.
I shall of course be seeing Mr Gorbachev when he comes to London next Wednesday night, for Thursday and the early part of Friday, and I expect this matter to arise because a great deal of effort has been vested by the whole international community, including the United States and the Soviet Union in this Agreement.
The very positive and encouraging element today was the close cooperation which clearly exists and the decisive approach by the three people who are charged specifically with implementing this Agreement: the Special Representative of the United Nations; the General in charge of the United Nations Forces; and the Administrator General in charge of order in the territories.
So may I just sum up? It is vital that this Agreement be implemented. The incursion must be dealt with decisively. A report on the facts is being prepared immediately and I hope will be available shortly after twenty-four hours and we expect the United Nations Secretary General will need to call a Security Council and we will support that move. [end p2]
Question
May I ask, do you detect any lessening in commitment by any party involved in the preparations towards independence and secondly do you think there should be an immediate increase in the UN Forces on the ground?
Prime Minister
I detect a total determination on the part of all people to whom I have been talking to implement the United Nations Resolution on the independence of Namibia and nothing must stand in their way.
I detect a complete unanimity in the necessity to take decisions and those are being taken but first we have to find the facts. If by any chance more troops are required on the ground then, as we have indicated before, any request would of course be entertained.
At the moment the difficulty is not the numbers of 4,500 troops, but that there are only a few of those 4,500 who have arrived. So we shall see what happens when we get the 4,500, a very few only are here at present.
Question
Pik Botha has in fact said that … to the situation of the incursion. Do you think that is the proper reaction to what has happened? [end p3]
Prime Minister
I have just indicated that nothing must stand in the way of implementing the United Nations Resolution on the independence of Namibia. South Africa, Angola and Cuba are signatories to that Agreement. It is in their interests and the interests of the whole international community that this Agreement go ahead.
We must not be put off by a challenge to the United Nations' authority at present. We must deal with it decisively and through the Security Council and the international community. We are all behind that Agreement. Its implementation will have an enormous influence on the whole future of affairs in South Africa. Anything which flouted it would be disastrous.