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...