Thatcher Takes on the Commonwealth

...Perhaps more important, the Commonwealth provides developing members with critical technical aid, a wide range of training programs and scholarships, and ongoing lines of communications among scientists, doctors, teachers, and other key specialists...

...Sharp criticism of Britain by its Commonwealth partners is not a new phenomenon, ofcourse,noris the threat of the union's dissolution...

...The arguments about the efficacy of sanctions, and about the powers of resistance of South Africa's bullheaded white tribe, are well known...

...But Thatcher is not easily cowed...

...The boycott, coming just before the August 3-5 seven-member summit here, was thought by some to forebode the collapse of the Commonwealth...

...The 1965 and 1971 wars between two members, India and Pakistan, caused much anguish and led eventually to Pakistan's quitting...

...But no fewer than 31 of those countries—including the largest, India—elected to stay away from the games this year because of Britain's refusal to impose full sanctions against South Africa...

...in wealth, from Australia and Singapore to Botswana and Bangladesh...

...The rewards of such cultural osmosis, while largely intangible, are nevertheless genuine...

...in political affiliation, from NATO-aligned Canada to nonaligned Ghana...

...The institution, an outgrowth of the Norman Gelb writes regularly for The New Leader on British affairs...

...In addition, it is a matter of principle in British politics for the Opposition in Parliament to condemn government policy on all issues (Ulster being an exception because of its special agony...

...She replied on the floor of the House of Commons with a quotation from the late Labor minister Richard Crossman's biography that reduced Healey to uncharacteristic silence...

...Nonetheless, worry has persisted among senior Cabinet officials that, in violation of her constitutional role, Her Majesty might be moving toward a clash with Downing Street to keep the Commonwealth together...

...If the current dispute within the Commonwealth is not settled amicably, one or more member nations may decide to pull out...

...The dire predictions were not borne out in either case for a very simple reason: Members' losses would have outweighed their gains had they left the organization...

...Still, a significant body of opinion in this country holds Thatcher morally culpable for not falling into line with her Commonwealth partners...

...Accordingly, "British" was dropped from the name...

...Margaret Thatcher is deeply offended by the refusal of many Commonwealth leaders to believe her government truly agrees with them that apartheid is wicked and must be eliminated...

...For Crossman described him as opposing such sanctions in the Cabinet when they were mooted during a Labor government's previous reign...

...In the early '70s there were forecasts of doom when Britain joined the European Economic Community (EEC) and was required to curtail its special trade relationships with Commonwealth countries...

...Consultations like the London summit are an indication of the effort to avoid irreparable discord—in this case, over policy toward South Africa— and of how difficult that task is...

...According to a now widely circulated story in the London Sunday Times, reportedly leaked from Buckingham Palace ,shewentsofarasto express dismay over the government's South African policy during her meeting with Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher on July 15...

...The Prime Minister's obduracy may even cause the Tories some difficulties in the next election...

...Black African members warned of a breakup in issuing strenuous objections during the mid-'60s to what they saw as rearguard British support for the white minority government of Rhodesia, later to become Zimbabwe...

...One barometer of their success will be the number of participants in the 1990 Commonwealth Games, assuming thev are held at all...

...Commonwealth nations in the region, already hurting, would be faced with trade difficulties, a suspension of valuable remittances from their citizens currently employed in South Africa, and very likely economic catastrophe...

...Circumstances would have to be really intolerable before responsible leaders chose to jettison these much needed and inexpensive benefits...

...Despite the withdrawals of Ireland (1949), South Africa (1961) and Pakistan (1972), the Commonwealth has continued to expand, doubling its size over the last two decades and adding seven members in the last six years alone...

...STAVING OFF SANCTIONS Thatcher Takes On the Commonwealth BY NORMAN GELB London "A white man's gang" was how the sports columnist of the London Daily Express described the Commonwealth Games when they opened in Edinburgh on July 24...

...The institution will probably endure, though, for the same reason it always has: The maj ority of participants find it extremely valuable...

...Most of them speak English fluently and identify more closely with Britain than with the United States or any other English-speaking country...

...Recently, for example, Labor foreign affairs spokesman Denis Healey harangued her for rejecting full sanctions...

...Involvement in the organization allows Britain to continue exerting considerable influence throughout the world in the face of its decline as a great power...

...And there are material benefits as well...

...As for Britain, whatever thecriticisms its Prime Minister is subjected to by the Commonwealth, the advantages of membership outweight them...

...After World War II, the organization was transformed by the inclusion of English possessions across the world that were gaining their independence...

...Leaders of member nations, notably Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia and Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, have angrily denounced Thatcher for limiting herself to relatively mild forms of pressure on Pretoria...

...As the Guardian has observed, "If you're president of Sierra Leone, what else is there...

...It affords the larger Third World partners a forum for making their influence felt in the major capitals of the globe, and it enables the leaders of the smaller member nations to engage in big league diplomacy...

...The participating countries span six continents...

...Although the Commonwealth Secretariat kept its headquarters in London and the government here remained the primary contributor to various aid schemes, Britain gradually became merely one nation among equals within the organization...

...But the Commonwealth survived, as it did when two other continuing members, Uganda and Tanzania, clashed in a bloody conflict seven years ago...

...To be sure, there could come a point where the advantages of the Commonwealth structure will be overridden by the recurring differences among its members...

...The Prime Minister, in a characteristic flash of defiance, has responded that if she is right and everyone else is wrong, it doesn't matter that Britain is standing alone...

...British Empire, was established in 1931 by the Statute of Westminster as the "British Commonwealth.' Originally, it consisted of the white or white-ruled nations that had been part of His Imperial Britannic Majesty's realm—Britain, Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, and South Africa...

...This redounds to the advantage of the Labor Party, which is more closely attuned than the Conservatives to the views of South Africa's black spokesmen—notably the African National Congress leaders— and of Third World Commonwealth members...

...Not all the Commonwealth crises, it should be noted, have been provoked by Britain...

...In size, they range from India and Nigeria to Antigua and Vanatu...

...The Palace firmly denied that the Queen and her principal adviser were at odds on the matter of sanctions...

...A vast proportion of senior administrators, military officers, educators, and professionals in the developing Commonwealth lands have had either personal training in England or some other contact with its agencies...

...So is the fact that Britain, in terms of trade loss, stands to suffer more than any other Commonwealth country...

...At the same time, she is convinced that the drastic sanctions proposed by most of the Commonwealth nations would not only fail in their intended purpose but would rob London of whatever leverage it has in Pretoria...

...Queen Elizabeth II, the institution's titular head and doughty advocate, was said to be particularly alarmed by this prospect...

...The quadrennial competition is supposed to symbolize the amity that ideally prevails among the 49 nations banded together under the British monarch, comprising a great diversity of races, religions and cultures...

...Less well known is the conviction in Whitehall that comprehensive sanctions would cause far greater distress among the organization's southern African members than has been publicly acknowledged, and that Britain, with serious economic problems of its own, would then be expected to come to their assistance...

...Trading preferences for its Commonwealth partners are now restricted as a result of Britain's EEC obligations, yet the sense of mutual interest and tradition that British businessmen share with their counterparts and with government procurement officers in member countries gives them a distinct advantage over non-Commonwealth rivals...

...Apartheid's evils are prominently reported by the British press and broadcasting services...