I propose to answer Questions Nos. 12 and 43 together.
The Government have followed with great concern the growing violence in South Africa. Following the killings in Bisho in early September I expressed the Government's revulsion at the loss of life and the numbers injured, and I condemned those responsible. At the same time I called on the South Africa Government to exercise full control over the security forces. The Foreign Ministers of the European Community also condemned the killings.
The Government have regularly conveyed to the South African authorities our views on apartheid, our belief in peaceful negotiations as the path to a new South Africa and the need for all parties in South Africa to address seriously the problems of political violence. The Bisho killings were an example, unfortunately not unique, of the violence which is part of the legacy of apartheid. As the Deputy will be aware, Justice Goldstone, Chairman of the Commission of Inquiry into Public Violence and Intimidation, has reported that several parties were to blame for the deaths at Bisho.
Ireland, has joined with our partners in the Community, in offering to help the South Africans address the continuing problem of political violence. The Community and its member states have sent a number of observers to South Africa, to work in co-ordination with the UN observer force established under Security Council Resolution 772. These observers, two of whom are Irish, are working with the structures set up under the National Peace Accord, signed on 14 September 1991 by the South African Government, the ANC and Inkatha, as well as other political parties and movements.
I hope to visit South Africa in the near future. In my meetings with the South African Government, the ANC and other parties and movements, I will urge a return to the path of peaceful negotiations which, I believe, is the only way to a united, democratic and non-racial South Africa.