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THE TIMES Friday September 8 1967
OVERSEAS NEWS
7
DEATH SENTENCE
FOR ARMS
Rhodesia anti-terror move
The Rhodesian Government to- day published a Hill designed to strengthen the country's existing security legislation.
The Bill, an amendment to the Law and Order Maintenance Act, provides for an extension of the circumstances in which con- victions for certain offences will carry mandatory death sentences.
Except in the case of pregnant "women or juveniles under 19, per- sons convicted of possessing “any arms of war will be sentenced to death unless they can prove "beyond any reasonable doubt
the onus being placed on the accused--that they did not intend to endanger the maintenance of law and order in Rhodesia.
"
Convictions for any act of ter- rorism or sabotage will carry up to 30 years' imprisonment or the death sentence. In the new Bill there is a comprehensive definition of such an act.
Forcible means
or
It includes acts designed by vio- lence or forcible means to achieve any political aim, including economic social change; acts likely to cause insurrections or forcible resist- ance to the Government or Security forces of Rhodesia or a neighbouring territory, and acts likely to interfere with essential services, to serious bodily injury, or "to cause substantial financial loss within Rho- desia to any person or the Govern- ment of Rhodesja ”.
cause
The Bill, which is likely to go through Parliament without any difficulty, Tepresents the Govern- ment's reaction to the recent out- burst of terrorism in Rhodesia.
Two Asian students at the Univer- sity College of Rhodesia in Salis- bury have been refused permission to remain in the country. They are Mr. Sunder Sadarangani, aged 21, a third-year student of economics From Malawi, and Mr. Soli Gani, a third-year medical student from South Africa.
Mr. Sadarangani was one of the students charged with obstructing the police during a demonstration in Salisbury last month. His tem-- porary residence permit is not to be renewed. Mr. Gani has been told that he will not be allowed to return to Rhodesia.
Mr Heath urges
talks.
A determined cftort should be made to reach a negotiated settle- ment of the Rhodesian problem, Mr. Heath, the Conservative leader, said at a gathering of businessmen in Port Glasgow yesterday. An effort was urgently needed in the interests of both Britain and Rhodesia, he added.
Mr. Heath believed that it was possible to reach a negotiated settle- ment "*
and this Government ought to do its best to secure it".
++
He greatly regretted" a speech about Rhodesia made last weekend by Mr. George Thomas, Minister of State at the Commonwealth Office. "I hope it does not mean the Gov- ernment is going to abandon the attempt to reach agreement", he said.
He believed that if Rhodesia be- came a republic, she would move closer to South Africa and Portugal, and possibly move into apartheid.
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