TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/021191/0211000.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 8.9 KB | 209 lines

                                                                                WORLD, Page 56

SOUTH AFRICA

The Twilight Of Apartheid


De Klerk moves to sweep away the last legal pillars of racial
inequality

By JOHN GREENWALD -- Reported by Peter Hawthorne/Cape Town


    What a difference a year makes. Exactly 12 months ago,
President F.W. de Klerk stunned his country by opening
Parliament with a pledge to legalize the militantly
antiapartheid African National Congress and release A.N.C.
leader Nelson Mandela from jail. With those milestones behind
him, De Klerk surpassed expectations again last week by
declaring his intention to bring a swift end to legally
sanctioned racial segregation. He called on Parliament to
repeal immediately the remaining pillars of discrimination that
dictate where blacks can work and live. "There is neither time
nor room for turning back," De Klerk declared. "There is only
one road -- ahead."

    De Klerk asked lawmakers to dismantle the Group Areas Act,
which segregates black and white residential areas, and the
Land Acts, which bar blacks from owning land outside specially
designated homelands. He unveiled a major surprise by promising
to phase out the infamous Population Registration Act. That
hated law underpins the entire apartheid system by forcing
South Africans to register by racial group for political and
economic purposes.

    The President's "Manifesto for the New South Africa" drew
a wildly mixed response. In Parliament outraged members of the
opposition Conservative Party called De Klerk a "traitor to the
nation" before staging the first mass opening-day walkout in
the legislature's history. "The fight is on for the survival
of white people," asserted Ferdie Hartzenberg, deputy leader
of the Conservative Party.

    Outside, antiapartheid protesters complained that De Klerk's
manifesto did not go far enough. A.N.C. supporters demanded
immediate voting rights for 28 million blacks, who constitute
70% of the country's inhabitants but have no representation in
the national government. Some 20,000 demonstrators marched
before Cape Town's House of Assembly carrying placards that
denounced the "racist Parliament." They demanded that
Parliament, which is divided into chambers for whites, Asians
and people of mixed race, be dissolved and replaced by an
integrated constituent assembly. Declared Walter Sisulu, a
veteran A.N.C. leader: "We don't have the vote. This is what
our people want today."

    De Klerk's speech capped one of the most fateful weeks in
the long struggle against apartheid. Earlier, the A.N.C. and
its major black power rival, the Zulu-based Inkatha Freedom
Party, moved to end their bloody internecine strife. Mandela
and Zulu Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi finally met for the first
time in 28 years and asked their followers to "cease all
attacks against one another with immediate effect." Feuding
between the two factions has claimed as many as 8,000 lives
since 1984. To underline the message, Mandela and Buthelezi
agreed to tour the most violence-torn regions of the country.

    Their reconciliation and De Klerk's repeal of apartheid set
the stage for the next phase of the black campaign for
equality. For years, outspoken critics of apartheid have argued
that even though the legal pillars of discrimination were
crumbling, the real test for the nation would come when it
finally moved to enfranchise blacks. While the A.N.C. insists
that only a one-man, one-vote rule would transfer power from
whites to blacks, De Klerk envisions a multiracial government
with a system of checks and balances that would give every
ethnic group a dominant voice in its own affairs.

    The President must now walk a tightrope, maintaining the
support of whites while negotiating with black leaders for a
new constitution that grants universal suffrage. De Klerk
emphasized last week that he had no intention of agreeing to
a black-dominated interim government that would oversee the
transition to a new regime. At the same time, he reaffirmed
plans to convene a multiracial, all-party conference to draft
the new constitution.

    De Klerk's antiapartheid moves seemed almost to be following
a script written in Washington. When the U.S. Congress imposed
economic sanctions in 1986, lawmakers said they would lift the
ban only if Pretoria enacted a list of major reforms. These
ranged from the release of Mandela to the abolition of the
Population Registration Act. Now De Klerk has fulfilled or
promised to meet each demand, leaving only the release of all
political prisoners to be carried out. Pretoria is clearly
hoping for a swift lifting of sanctions. However, U.S.
officials said last week that the prisoner issue remained a
sticking point.

    De Klerk appeared determined to root out virtually every
major form of legal discrimination. Among the laws he promised
to scrap was one that helped create the all-black homelands.
Yet a few legal vestiges of apartheid will remain in a
technical sense. Children who were born after the repeal of the
Population Registration Act will no longer be classified by
race, but the register will not be scrapped entirely until the
new government comes in.

    While the speech summoned South Africans to a new era of
harmony, it also exposed the deep rifts that run through every
level of the racially torn society. Despite the truce between
Mandela and Buthelezi, the two leaders remain far apart in
their strategy. As A.N.C. demonstrators called for immediate
elections, Buthelezi applauded De Klerk's rejection of such a
move, which the Zulu leader denounced as "a constitutional leap
into the dark." At the same time, Buthelezi praised the De Klerk
government for "lending its weight to breaking the back of
apartheid."

    Although the A.N.C. officially renounced antigovernment
violence last year, Mandela still endorses mass demonstrations
and strikes; Buthelezi calls them "anarchistic." He opposes the
A.N.C. demand that economic sanctions continue against South
Africa until blacks gain power. For its part, the A.N.C.
accuses Inkatha of collaborating with the government by
encouraging Zulus to live in their segregated homeland.
Meanwhile, the A.N.C. has been burdened by the troubles of
Mandela's wife Winnie, who faces trial as early as this week on
charges of kidnapping and assault in connection with the 1988
death of a youth who allegedly died at the hands of her
bodyguards.

    Despite their differences, the A.N.C. and Inkatha have
tentatively agreed to De Klerk's proposal for an all-party
conference -- or Great Indaba -- to help design a multiracial
legislature that would replace the white-dominated Parliament.
The A.N.C. wants Pretoria to free all remaining political
prisoners and allow exiles to return to South Africa before
convening the Indaba. If such conditions are met and the talks
remain on track, political analysts say elections could be held
under a new constitution by late 1993.

    But that timetable could grind to a halt amid fresh
outbreaks of black-against-black violence or a growing backlash
from disaffected whites. Less than 24 hours after Mandela and
Buthelezi embraced last week, an A.N.C.-Inkatha clash killed
at least eight people and injured 60 others in Natal province,
where most of the country's 6 million Zulus live. In Pretoria
police used nightsticks and tear gas to battle 5,000 white
farmers who paralyzed traffic by parking farm vehicles on
downtown streets. Backed by the Conservative Party and the
neo-Nazi Afrikaner Resistance Movement, the protesters demanded
an end to political reforms. The black violence and right-wing
intransigence showed that the final days of apartheid could
prove to be as tumultuous as any that have come before.


____________________________________________________________
"THERE IS ONLY ONE ROAD -- AHEAD"


    1989

    Sept. 6: President F.W. de Klerk initiates reform by
legalizing peaceful demonstrations and opening segregated
beaches.

    Oct. 15: The government releases six A.N.C. leaders from
prison, including Walter Sisulu.

    1990

    Feb. 2: De Klerk lifts the ban outlawing the A.N.C. and
other political groups.

    Feb. 11: Nelson Mandela is freed from jail after 27 years.

    May 2: The A.N.C. and the government hold their first formal
talks and agree to negotiate a new nonracial constitution.

    June 7: De Klerk ends the national state of emergency in
most parts of the country.

    June 19: Parliament repeals the Separate Amenities Act,
opening formerly whites-only public facilities such as
libraries, pools and parks.

    Aug. 6: The A.N.C. agrees to suspend its "armed struggle."

    Sept. 24: De Klerk is received by President Bush on his
first official visit to the U.S.

    1991

    Feb. 1: De Klerk announces repeal of the Land Acts, Group
Areas Act and Population Registration Act, the remaining
pillars of apartheid.