TIME: Almanac 1995

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<text id=90TT2164> <title> Aug. 13, 1990: Interview:Andries Treurnicht </title> <history> TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1990 Aug. 13, 1990 Iraq On The March </history> <article> <source>Time Magazine</source> <hdr> INTERVIEW, Page 7 Dressing Apartheid in Nationalistic Clothes </hdr> <body> Rejecting negotiations with Nelson Mandela, Andries Treurnicht, leader of South Africa's Conservative Party, warns of a white revolt By Peter Hawthorne and Scott MacLeod and Andries Treurnicht Q. Many people applaud President F.W. de Klerk for making courageous reforms, but you as a fellow Afrikaner seem to regard him as a traitor. A. We are not against reform in principle, but the type of reform by Mr. De Klerk is a denial of the existence of a separate people who are entitled to self-determination. He started on the road of a unitary state, of participation by all individuals in the government of the country. For us, that means 30 million black people, with their own cultural, ethnic and racial background, will have an all-out majority against the rest of the population. It means whites are not entitled to govern themselves, to protect their rights, to protect their culture and way of living and aspirations. In South Africa, we should move in the direction of various democracies, to provide political systems for the various peoples [and] ethnic groups. What we now see in Eastern Europe, for instance in the Baltic states, the urge toward self-government in their own territories, confirms our attitude. Q. Your policy goes beyond self-determination. You separate the races right down to swimming pools, park benches and buses. A. We think that is part of community life, the right of a people to have their own way of doing things. Q. To many people, that is racism. How do you respond? A. I am quite frank in saying I am race conscious. I am aware of the fact that I am a white man. I don't think that's racism. I would say racism, in the negative sense of the word, would mean not only being conscious of the fact that you belong to a certain racial group but denying other people certain rights and discriminating in the negative sense of the word against people. Q. Hasn't that been happening in South Africa for the past 40 years? A. That is not the only thing that happened. In any system there may be people to whose disadvantage a certain policy is applied. But I refuse to admit that the policy of "separate development" was only to the detriment of the various [nonwhite] communities. There are members of these communities who achieved not only positions in their own communities but some of them became really rich. Q. Two million blacks live in Soweto only 10 miles from "white" Johannesburg. How are they any less South African than you are? A. What is a nation? According to your American view, a nation is all the individuals inside a country under one government. There is a West European definition: a particular people having its own country and own government. I would regard the Zulu as a nation. For quite a long time, we as Afrikaners spoke of ourselves as "the Afrikaner nation." Q. What do you do with Soweto? Kick the people out? A. We recognize that isn't possible. You will have to have large black communities. But we say socially and politically, those communities are not part and parcel of the white nation. Q. The 2 million blacks in Soweto might just as easily say this is their country. A. We own land, which we didn't steal. There are various ways in which land becomes the property of people. Actually, that is something that people blame us for. We have 87% of the land. We as the Conservative Party admit there will have to be a sort of readjustment. Yes. But our approach is not to put the whole South Africa as a cake on a table and start redividing it. We are willing to take certain steps to negotiate--that is the In word of the time--with the representatives of the various black peoples. O.K., you think you don't have enough land, let's talk about that. But first of all, you recognize the land that at this stage belongs to the white people. Q. You might get sympathy for white self-determination if your demands seemed fair. But whites want the wealth of the country. A. No, certainly not. I would admit that is a very basic question when it comes to separation of political power. We have to investigate what are the resources. Johannesburg historically was white territory. Blacks came in for the sake of employment. One has to consider what the government did to supply housing and opportunities for the members of other communities. Soweto is an excellent example of providing housing, community life and schools for people who were living in squalor elsewhere in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Q. It is easy to imagine a return to the violence of the 1980s if you ban the A.N.C., dismantle the black trade unions and try to reinstitute strict apartheid. A. We don't call for disaster but law-and-order. You cannot meet the demands of radicals. You will have to contain any suggestion of violence and arson and all those things. We are speaking about black rebellion. People haven't considered white reaction. I warned Mr. De Klerk, "If you introduce a system by which you subject the white nation to black majority rule, you are looking for trouble." As to the whites, they have been reasonably peaceful up to now. They know they have the security forces and government behind them. Take that away, then you are facing disaster. Q. How would you deal with Nelson Mandela? A. Mandela is out of prison. We accept that. But Mandela will have to decide what his position is in a white-governed country. Because I say, "Mr. Mandela, the claims you are making now I do not recognize. You have no claim to being a co-ruler over my people. You are a Xhosa. You can speak on behalf of many blacks. But inside white territory, you have no say." Q. Will you take part in the constitutional negotiations called for by De Klerk? A. We have no stand in principle against negotiations or talks. But we say the A.N.C., the Pan-Africanist Congress, the Communist Party, as terrorist organizations preaching violence, we won't discuss our freedom and our claims with them. We have decided to formulate our own proposals and make them known as widely as possible. But we are not going to negotiate our claims with the A.N.C. or Mr. Mandela. Q. At what point do you think whites will violently resist what De Klerk is doing? A. Certainly there is a possibility. You have individuals and certain groups. They have already betrayed their presence. Our attitude is that a dissatisfied individual or small group is not entitled to take up arms against the government. In principle. Practically, it would be foolish. But we also say that in the extreme, there may arise a situation where the whole white community considers itself threatened. Then our approach is that these people should act via their representatives. I don't want to elaborate on that. I don't speculate on that. I tell my own people, now the government offers the possibility of a general election or a referendum. I say, don't be caught out. Be prepared to have a majority. Q. De Klerk is improving South Africa's image overseas. How would the world react if the Conservative Party came to power and changed course? A. De Klerk has not obtained decisions for the abolition of sanctions and boycotts. They want him to deliver the goods in terms of an irreversible political reform. I don't regard it as reform. I would use a strong word. It is the betrayal of the right of a nation, for the sake of a unitary state that would be acceptable to certain people abroad. </body> </article> </text>