asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs the action, if any, the Government intend to take against the South African regime following that country's recent armed raids into three neighbouring countries; if the Government will now consider extending their planned ban on the importation of South African fruit and vegetables to a full embargo on trade with South Africa; if they will consider any special aid measures for the front line countries which have come under attack from South Africa; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - South African Armed Raids.
3.
Deputies will recall that I issued a statement condemning the attacks on Botswana, Zambia and Zimbabwe on 20 May in which I stated that the unjustified attacks on its neighbours are both an evasion of the real issues facing South Africa and a threat to the stability and peace of the Southern African region as a whole.
Ireland supports the imposition of sanctions as a means of bringing pressure to bear on the South African Government. However, it is our view that for such sanctions to be effective they should be carefully chosen, selective, graduated and imposed by the Security Council. A trade embargo by a single small country would be unlikely to influence South African policy in the direction Ireland would wish to see it take. As Deputies will be aware, Zambia is a priority country for Ireland's development cooperation programme and will this year receive assistance to the extent of IR£2.4 million. Zimbabwe, which is not a priority country, will receive IR£270,000. Ireland is not involved in development assistance in Botswana but projects to assist development in that country would be eligible for consideration for assistance by my Department in the normal way.
The Minister has referred to the need for sanctions to be selective — presumably on selective items. Has he made any progress in selecting the type of items, apart from fruit and vegetables, which could come under sanctions with regard to South Africa and has he considered the area of high technology and computer equipment?
I mentioned that fruit and vegetables would be coming under licence from October next. We can do that without being in conflict with our obligations under the EC and GATT because we have satisfied ourselves that these products are produced by prison labour. Under our EC obligations we could not alone go any further than that. We would wish to see further sanctions taken by the Twelve as a whole. As I said, they should be carefully chosen, selective, graduated and imposed by the Security Council of the United Nations, if possible.
Is the Minister aware that Denmark, another member of the EC, has imposed sanctions and embargoed trade with South Africa? If they can do it, why can we not?
I have noted that Denmark have done so, but we feel that it would be much more effective to have the Twelve take the sanctions together; or, preferably still, that the Security Council of the United Nations would impose the sanctions.
If we were to take the same action as Denmark would that not strengthen our hand when looking for support of the Twelve?
Perhaps it would, but that is a point which should be pursued at the Council of Ministers rather than unilaterally.