WORLD, Page 29SOUTH AFRICAAn Unlikely Tea for TwoBy meeting with Botha, Mandela gives his blessing to direct talksbetween his supporters and the government
A mere hour's drive separates the prison farm where Nelson
Mandela is being held and State President P.W. Botha's
white-pillared residence in Cape Town. But the political distance
between those two men has always seemed unbridgeable. They have
personified the country's racial stalemate: Mandela, who turns 71
this week, insisted that he would make no deals with the white
government while he remained a prisoner; Botha, 73, vowed that he
would never free the symbolic leader of the nation's black majority
unless Mandela forswore the use of violence.
To the astonishment of black and white South Africans, the
government disclosed last week that the chasm may not be as
impossibly wide as once thought. In his 27th year of imprisonment,
serving a life sentence for sabotage, Mandela accepted an
invitation from Botha to meet face to face for the first time. The
two adversaries spent 45 minutes on July 5 talking "in a pleasant
spirit" and sipping tea. It was not a negotiation, said Justice
Minister Kobie Coetsee, who also participated, but the two foes
confirmed "their support for peaceful development in South Africa."
By agreeing to that, Mandela seemed to qualify for admission to
negotiations with the government under a new formulation from the
ruling National Party welcoming all "people who have a commitment
to peace" to join in efforts to draft a new constitution that would
provide a national political role for blacks.
White right wingers called Botha a "traitor" for sitting down
with a man they consider a terrorist. White liberals felt confirmed
in their belief that Mandela and his organization, the outlawed
African National Congress, hold the key to successful negotiations
between blacks and whites. But Mandela had not informed the A.N.C.,
his family or anyone else about the meeting, and black activists
were shocked and confused when they learned of it. For years they
have refused to consider or tolerate any contact with the
government, demanding that it first release Mandela, legalize the
A.N.C. and end the state of emergency.
One of the most prominent antiapartheid leaders, the Rev. Frank
Chikane, along with Mandela's wife Winnie, quickly called a press
conference to dismiss the talks in Cape Town as a "nonevent," an
act of "political mischief" staged by Mandela's jailers. In Lusaka,
Joe Modise, commander of Spear of the Nation, the guerrilla wing
of the A.N.C. that Mandela helped create in 1961, insisted that
"only the armed struggle will bring the Boers to negotiations."
Mandela, who has a television and radio in his three-bedroom
house at Victor Verster Prison, heard the angry reaction of his
supporters. In a statement released last Wednesday, he repeated his
conviction that a government "dialogue with the mass democratic
movement, and in particular with the African National Congress, is
the only way of ending violence and bringing peace." His intention,
he told his followers, was "to contribute to the creation of the
climate" that would lead to such negotiations. Black leaders
immediately began downplaying their resentment, and Chikane
retreated. "I welcome Mr. Mandela's commitment" to creating such
a climate, he said.
Though Mandela holds no official position in the A.N.C., he
has proved that even in prison he is the leader to reckon with. Nor
should there be much surprise at this: he has always been more
realistic and flexible than A.N.C. leaders in exile or such
internal antiapartheid coalitions as the United Democratic Front
and the Congress of South African Trade Unions. In interviews
granted to occasional VIP visitors to his cell, he conceded that
white fears of domination must be taken into account in designing
a black majority government -- something A.N.C. policy rejects. He
has also maintained warm relations with Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi,
head of the Zulu-based Inkatha organization, which is fighting a
bloody war against A.N.C. and U.D.F. supporters. His wish, Mandela
recently wrote Buthelezi, is to unify all the black movements.
After recovering from tuberculosis last year, Mandela
apparently concluded that he had to try to get negotiations going
before his time ran out, and agreed to meet Botha. He talked
secretly over several months with at least four Cabinet ministers,
and would have seen Botha much earlier if the President had not
suffered a stroke last January. Botha, the man who told his white
countrymen in 1979 that they had to "adapt or die," seemed
determined to begin the process before he retires next September.
By arranging the meeting, says Cape Town University Professor David
Welsh, Botha acknowledged both Mandela and the A.N.C. as
significant "players" in the search for a political settlement.
For all the confusion it caused, the Mandela-Botha meeting
answers some long-standing questions. There can be no doubt now
that the government's improved treatment of Mandela, which began
when he was hospitalized a year ago, will lead to his eventual
release. It could come just after the Sept. 6 parliamentary
elections, so that Botha can claim credit for the step before
handing over the presidency to the new National Party leader, F.W.
de Klerk. Similarly, it seems inevitable that the A.N.C., which the
government still classifies as a terrorist organization, will be
included in future negotiations. It is a testament to his
leadership abilities that Mandela has already led his reluctant
