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- THE WEEK, Page 15WORLDMarching to Pretoria
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- The A.N.C. sends De Klerk a message -- from below his window
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- In its campaign to take power from the white government,
- South Africa's black majority has two main weapons: mass protest
- and international pressure. Most economic and sports sanctions
- imposed from abroad have now been lifted -- as South Africa's
- participation in the Barcelona Olympics attests -- so Nelson
- Mandela and his African National Congress have increased their
- efforts at home.
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- After a two-day general strike by millions of black
- workers last week, the A.N.C. and its allies in the trade unions
- and the Communist Party turned up the heat with marches in
- several cities. Most dramatic was the peaceful turnout in
- Pretoria, the heart of Afrikanerdom and the administrative
- capital of the country, where 70,000 marchers drew up in the
- park below President F.W. de Klerk's office and chanted, "De
- Klerk must go!" Said A.N.C. secretary-general Cyril Ramaphosa:
- "Next time, Mr. De Klerk, we are going to be inside."
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- In his speech to the marchers, Mandela made it clear that
- the protest was not intended actually to topple the President
- but to press him into faster movement toward a multiracial
- interim government. "We have not come here to gloat," he said.
- "We are here to take South Africa along the road to peace and
- democracy." De Klerk said later he had been talking privately
- with the A.N.C. and was "confident that negotiations will be
- resumed."
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