TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/080591/0805005.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 5.6 KB | 123 lines

                                                                                WORLD, Page 42

SOUTH AFRICA

Crisis of Confidence


A scandal engulfs De Klerk, and raises the question: Are he and
his National Party sincere about sharing power?

By SCOTT MACLEOD/JOHANNESBURG -- With reporting by Peter
Hawthorne/Cape Town


    Every few months, President F.W. de Klerk gathers his
Cabinet colleagues together and heads for the bushveld. In a
camp in the Transvaal province near the Botswana border, they
thrash out political strategy, yet find time to sit around a
fire and eat wild game. The idea is to work, but also to relax
under the wide African sky.

    Last week that sky seemed to be falling in on De Klerk,
who returned from his latest two-day retreat to face a
credibility crisis that is growing with bush-fire speed. Exposes
in the Johannesburg Weekly Mail showed that the government,
despite repeated denials and stonewalling, had provided covert
funds via the South African police to underwrite Inkatha, a
group battling the African National Congress for the support of
the country's nearly 29 million blacks. By Pretoria's
admission, Inkatha and an allied labor union received at least
$600,000.

    The scandal widened days later, when Foreign Minister
Roelof ("Pik") Botha admitted that contrary to previous denials,
South Africa had secretly spent more than $36 million to keep
the leftist South West Africa People's Organization from
winning a commanding victory in pre-independence elections in
neighboring Namibia in 1989. Pretoria's support of at least
seven parties opposed to SWAPO may have prevented the
organization from gaining the two-thirds majority it needed to
introduce a socialist constitution.

    The disclosures of secrecy and subterfuge undermined De
Klerk's credibility at a critical moment. After destroying the
pillars of apartheid and persuading the U.S. and other countries
to drop their sanctions against South Africa, De Klerk must try
to get the A.N.C. and other black groups to the negotiating
table to write a new constitution that would extend voting
rights to the black majority. "Inkathagate," as the press dubbed
the affair, may delay the start of an all-party conference,
originally planned as early as September, where the major
political groups will decide how to structure negotiations. Use
of secret funds by Pretoria also raised suspicions that it was
employing below-the-belt tactics to weaken the A.N.C., widely
considered the most likely group to win the country's first free
elections.

    As disturbing, the scandal lent credence to charges that
security forces have aided armed attacks by Inkatha supporters
on A.N.C. members. Since 1986 more than 6,000 people have been
killed in black-vs.-black clashes, giving comfort to those who
argue that inherent tribalism renders blacks unfit to be
stewards of democracy. A.N.C. president Nelson Mandela has
warned that power-sharing talks could founder unless the
government can ensure the impartiality of the security forces,
a notion Inkathagate now puts in serious doubt.

    Mandela, who often described De Klerk as a man of
integrity, is now clearly suspicious of his intentions. The
A.N.C. demanded a full inquiry and called for a freeze on the
$132 million earmarked for secret projects in this year's
government budget. As details of covert funding trickled out,
politicians -- white and black -- and newspapers across the
ideological spectrum demanded quick action to salvage the
government's relationship with the A.N.C., including the
resignations of the three Cabinet ministers who have been linked
to the scandal so far. "De Klerk has blown a good deal of
credibility at home and abroad," said Democratic Party M.P. Tony
Leon. "He must act swiftly to restore it if he is to retain
people's trust."

    De Klerk insisted that funds funneled to Inkatha were for
the organization's anti-sanctions efforts, not political work.
During a photo opportunity with a visiting official, the usually
amiable President rebuffed reporters by saying that he would
hold off all further comment for another week. The delay led to
opposite lines of speculation: either De Klerk was fumbling
badly or he was taking time to organize a major shake-up of his
security establishment.

    The biggest attempt to contain the political fallout from
Inkathagate came from the Zulu-based movement itself. Claiming
he never knew about Pretoria's $87,500 donation to his
organization for two rallies in 1989 and 1990, Inkatha leader
Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi repaid the amount to the government;
his assistant, M.Z. Khumalo, took responsibility for the
transaction and resigned.

    Even if De Klerk were to sack the Cabinet members involved
in the payment scheme, it would probably be too little, too
late. Inkathagate has seriously eroded trust in Pretoria and
bolstered suspicions that the President and his National Party
colleagues intend to remain in power if they can, and on their
own terms. Ironically, Foreign Minister Botha admitted last week
that the government's illegal spending "probably" strengthened
the A.N.C.'s long-standing demand for a new interim government
that includes itself and other black parties.

    Freeing Mandela and scrapping the apartheid laws were, in
retrospect, simple tasks compared with what must come next. A
watching world still has high hopes for a peaceful transition
to multiracial democracy in South Africa. But as the Inkatha
affair shows, the President is not exactly the smooth agent of
political change suggested by his carefully crafted public
image.