§ 13. Mr. ColvinTo ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs how many visits by Foreign and Commonweatlh Office officials have been made to Bophuthatswana over the last decade.
§ Mrs. ChalkerBritish embassy officials pay regular visits to all the South African homelands, including Bophuthatswana. The details of individual visits are not recorded.
§ Mr. ColvinWill my right hon. Friend acknowledge that because it is politically difficult for Ministers to visit Bophuthatswana, it is even more important for their officials to do so to bear out what hon. Members have been reporting for years, which is that this is a rare example of an African multi-racial democracy—[interruption.]— which is attempting to stand on its own two feet economically, which is more than can be said for the front-line states? It is, therefore, a model of what we would like to see the Republic of South Africa become. [Interruption.]
§ Mr. SpeakerOrder. We often hear things in this House with which we disagree.
§ Mrs. ChalkerWe recognise what my hon. Friend says—that it appears that apartheid as practised elsewhere in South Africa is not practised in Bophuthatswana—and in that sense the South African Government have something to learn from Bophuthatswana. That does not alter the fact that the whole creation and existence of that homeland is itself an expression of the apartheid that the South African Government forced on it, and nothing that anybody says, here or in Bophuthatswana, will alter that situation.