TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/062590/0625107.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 5.6 KB | 139 lines

                                                                                NATION, Page 22

Does De Klerk Deserve a Break?



No, but Mandela could strengthen his campaign to end apartheid
by endorsing a gradual easing of sanctions

By SCOTT MACLEOD


    At dinner parties in Johannesburg's California-style
northern suburbs, liberal whites love to tell foreign guests
that "sanctions don't work." The truth, if the stubborn hosts
would admit it, is that sanctions certainly have worked, up to
a point.

    For one thing, the South African economy has lost up to $27
billion over the years as a result of the bans on loans and
credits imposed by the U.S. and other Western nations. Without
sanctions, there would have been more jobs for whites as well
as blacks, not to mention more backyard tennis courts and BMWs
for the residents of Johannesburg's mink-and-manure belt. It
would be naive to believe that economic pressure, as well as
the sporting and cultural boycotts that have turned white South
Africans into pariahs, has played no part in convincing the
ruling National Party that apartheid must end and blacks must
get the vote.

    But now that Nelson Mandela is not only out of prison but
sitting across the negotiating table from President F.W. de
Klerk and calling him a "man of integrity," another question
has become more relevant: Given the series of reforms announced
by De Klerk since his election nine months ago, should
sanctions be lifted or eased?

    To Mandela, the answer is an emphatic no. If the rationale
for lifting sanctions is to reward De Klerk for good deeds, his
logic is unassailable. Though De Klerk can point to a growing
list of significant reforms, the changes he has brought about
are long overdue.

    But Mandela's no makes less sense if the aim of lifting
sanctions is to give De Klerk a political boost that would help
him withstand a right-wing backlash against further reforms.
At a rally in Pretoria last month, 50,000 Afrikaners took a
solemn pledge to regain what De Klerk had "unjustly given
away." Two weeks ago in the Umlazi district of Natal, the
right-wing Conservative Party jolted De Klerk by nearly
upsetting the National Party candidate in a by-election in what
had previously been a safe parliamentary seat. If the future
looks uncertain when white South Africans next go to the polls
in 1994, the main beneficiaries are likely to be
apartheid-forever Conservatives who angrily protested Mandela's
release.

    The African National Congress wants sanctions as a stick
with which to beat De Klerk and his colleagues during
negotiations. "It will make them more amenable to talking to
us, to conceding things to us," explains A.N.C. spokesman Ahmed
Kathrada. But the A.N.C. has an even more powerful weapon at
its disposal if it determines that De Klerk is negotiating in
bad faith: not its "armed struggle," but rather the threat of
mass protests and boycotts. More than sanctions, it was the
mass uprising and bloodshed in the country's black townships
between 1984 and '86 that made a lasting impression on white
South Africans of the need to accommodate black demands.

    For the A.N.C. to reconsider its stand in favor of sanctions
would be to recognize that the antiapartheid struggle has
reached a new stage of genuine negotiations. A dialogue is what
Mandela wanted when he went to prison, and that is what he has
now. Perhaps it is unrealistic to ask the A.N.C. to give up one
of its key levers at such an early point in the negotiations.
After all, full-scale talks have not yet begun.

    But it is equally unrealistic for the A.N.C. to insist that
sanctions be maintained until all -- or nearly all -- its
demands are met. The A.N.C. wants De Klerk to agree to an
interim government, which would supervise the election of a
constituent assembly that would draw up a new constitution
based on one man, one vote. Sanctions would be lifted, in other
words, only after De Klerk throws up his hands and surrenders.
That is unlikely ever to happen. If the new South African
political system is not achieved through compromise -- a
principle Mandela has endorsed generally -- then it can be
achieved only through further bloodshed.

    Mandela could avert such a disaster by using a step-by-step
lifting of sanctions as a bargaining chip. In a gesture of
compromise, he could set realistic -- as opposed to maximalist
-- goals for De Klerk and then reward him with a progressive
easing of sanctions if he meets them. Nothing could do more to
strengthen the tenuous spirit of reconciliation that remains
the best hope for doing away with apartheid.


____________________________________________________________
What Washington Wants


    For the U.S. to lift the economic sanctions it imposed in
1986, South Africa must meet four of these five conditions:

    1. Release all political prisoners

    Mandela was freed on Feb. 11, but many activists remain in
jail.

    2. Suspend the state of emergency

    The emergency was lifted on June 7 in all but Natal
province, where black-against-black violence continues.

    3. Legalize all political parties

    Thirty-six banned organizations, including the A.N.C., were
legalized on Feb. 2.

    4. Establish a timetable for eliminating apartheid

    Though some restrictive measures have been repealed, laws
prohibiting blacks from living in "white" areas, giving most
land to whites and requiring all people be classified by race
remain on the books.

    5. Start negotiations with black leaders

    In May the South African government and the A.N.C. committed
themselves to such talks.