Botha Appoints Judge to Study Funding Dispute

JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (AP) _ President P.W. Botha today ordered an inquiry into the funding of newspaper ads calling for the legalization of the outlawed African National Congress guerrilla movement.

Botha, speaking Wednesday in Parliament, suggested that Barclays Bank managing director Chris Ball had financed the ads.

Ball angrily denied the accusation and challenged the president to repeat it outside Parliament, where he would not be immune from prosecution for slander.

Botha told Parliament today he appointed Justice George Munnik, the highest judge in Cape province, to report on who placed the ads, who paid for them and whether Ball was involved.

Botha's remarks in Parliament were part of a speech saying liberal whites were manipulated by black ANC revolutionaries. Ball and several other white business leaders who criticize the apartheid system of racial segregation have met with ANC leaders abroad.

The ads, which called on the government to lift the ban on the ANC and negotiate with the guerrilla group, appeared in major newspapers Jan. 7.

A day later, the government banned ads supporting or promoting the ANC or other outlawed organizations. A court overturned the ban last week, but the regulations were rewritten and reinstated.

Censorship rules imposed under South Africa's 8-month-old state of emergency ban or restrict reporting about unrest, security force actions, treatment of detainees, most forms of peaceful protest and a broad range of statements the government considers subversive.

Botha told Parliament's white chamber Wednesday that ''in radical circles it is said that Mr. Chris Ball of Barclays Bank advanced the money for the advertisements to the advertisers. An amount of 150,000 rand ($75,000) has been stated.''

Ball responded Wednesday night: ''You are wrong, Mr. President. I knew nothing about the advertisement until I saw it in my office on the morning of first publication.''

The newspaper Business Day quoted opposition Progressive Federal Party member Dave Dalling as saying Botha was ''guilty of the worst type of gutter politics by attempting, without any foundation of proof, to smear the character of the managing director of one of South Africa's leading banks.''

The Star of Johannesburg said in an editorial, ''Government policy must have reached some sort of nadir of bankruptcy for the country's chief executive to resort to cheap character assassination of this kind.''

Krish Naidoo, a lawyer who placed the ads on instructions from the United Democratic Front anti-apartheid coalition and other groups, said the front gave him a check for the ads, ''and it certainly wasn't from Chris Ball.'' Naidoo said he did not know the source of the funds.

By law and custom, apartheid establishes a racially segregated society in which the 24 million blacks have no vote in national affairs. The 5 million whites control the economy and maintain separate districts, schools and health services.

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