S. African Court Finds Belgian Grandmother Guilty of Treason

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa —  A Belgian woman was convicted of treason by a South African court Thursday for assisting guerrillas of the outlawed African National Congress in their fight against minority white rule here.

Helene Passtoors, 44, the first foreigner convicted of treason in a South African court since the Boer War more than 80 years ago, now faces a possible death sentence for what she described as “a general human duty to fight against racism and fascism.”

Although denying that she was a “card-carrying” member of the African National Congress, Passtoors admitted that she sympathizes with the aims of the group for “a democratic, just and non-racial South Africa” and cooperated with members of the organization both before and after coming here 15 months ago. She nevertheless pleaded innocent to the charges of treason and terrorism.

Justice Tjibbe Spoelstra, in convicting Passtoors of treason, ruled that even the six-month student visa she held to study linguistics here meant that “she owed allegiance to the republic (of South Africa) and could commit treason against it,” although she is a Belgian citizen and had been here only four months before her arrest last June.

Spoelstra said the prosecution failed to prove that Passtoors, the mother of four children and now a grandmother as well, had actually belonged to the African National Congress, membership of which is often taken by courts here as tantamount to treason. But he found an “inescapable inference” that she worked for the organization and its military wing. Nevertheless, he acquitted her of terrorism charges, saying this evidence against her might have been “totally concocted.”

Arms Smuggling Charged

Government witnesses had testified during her trial that Passtoors, along with her former husband, Klaas de Jonge, 47, a Dutch citizen who has been holed up in the Netherlands Embassy for 10 months after escaping from police custody, had smuggled large quantities of arms into South Africa and hidden them for guerrillas of the African National Congress.

The two were also accused of reconnoitering targets for terrorist attacks and establishing infiltration and escape routes for the guerrillas.

Passtoors and De Jonge are among 10 whites who have come to trial or have been charged in the last two years with major political crimes, such as treason, terrorism or espionage, for belonging to or assisting the African National Congress, the principal organization fighting minority white rule here.

The government clearly wants to use her case to discourage other whites from supporting the guerrillas, and Passtoors is likely to draw a long prison sentence while escaping the death sentence.

Louis le Grange, South Africa’s minister of law and order, warned in Parliament earlier this month that the African National Congress and the South African Communist Party have recently increased their recruiting of whites, particularly those of draft age who oppose compulsory military service.

President Pieter W. Botha declared in a national television address Thursday that if the present civil strife of nearly two years continues, he will use the full might of the state to end it.

“I would . . . shirk my responsibility if I do not state clearly that the government is adamant to maintain order,” Botha told the country’s president’s council, an advisory body to Parliament. “People who perpetrate violence must take note that if they do not renounce violence, they will inevitably face the full power at the disposal of the state, which has not been applied to the full. In the future, there must be no misunderstanding about this.”

Botha nevertheless emphasized his desire for political, social and economic reforms, including a new constitution, that would satisfy the “legitimate aspirations” of blacks and reiterated his hope for black-white negotiations on the country’s future.

But he again said that any negotiations would have to take place on the government’s terms, starting with a renunciation of violence by the African National Congress and other anti-apartheid groups and acceptance of separate “population groups,” primarily whites and blacks, as the basis for any new political system.

“South Africa is a country of minorities and a multicultural society,” Botha said, ruling out a one-man, one-vote democracy in a unitary state. “Our diversity is a fact that must be accepted.”

Announcing that his proposed multiracial national council will be established shortly as a forum for these talks as well as black representation at top levels of government, Botha said that any agreements reached in the council’s deliberations would either have to be submitted to the white-controlled Parliament or to the predominantly white electorate for approval.