Word: blacks
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...well as by its desire to avoid further economic sanctions. While no one from the government notified Sisulu's wife Albertina that he was to be released, De Klerk found time to telephone British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher to tell her he was freeing a group of aging black leaders as she had urged him to do. Thatcher took that news with her to the Commonwealth conference in Kuala Lumpur last week, where she opposed all proposals for additional sanctions. This malleability was something new for Pretoria, however. "The classic Afrikaner response is never to be seen to be giving...
...were simply "one of many groups." Zulu Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi, head of the 1.5 million-member Inkatha movement and an opponent of the A.N.C.'s socialist orientation, responds, "I shudder to think what would happen to South Africa if we all stood aside and allowed only one black party to negotiate the country's future." To try to hurdle this and other obstacles and preconditions, Viljoen suggests preliminary "talks about talks...
Other, more radical activists of the Pan-Africanist Congress, which is also banned, reject talks altogether. Jafta Masemola, a P.A.C. leader released with Sisulu, said, "We cannot negotiate with the usurpers of our land." While most black leaders agree that De Klerk has set off in a new direction, they remain skeptical because of the destination he has in mind. De Klerk's policy, fully endorsed by the ruling National Party, is one of constitutionally guaranteed "group rights" defined by race, including the right of whites to veto legislation they might consider threatening, to live in whites-only neighborhoods...
...favor negotiations because the process might lead to government concessions that are unforeseen now, but they do not want to go to the table if their presence offers nothing but a public relations success for De Klerk by making him look like a peacemaker. Ramaphosa, head of the black National Union of Mineworkers, concedes that the government does appear to be seeking change. "One could say they are willing to usher in a new South Africa," he says, "but some of us have serious doubts because they are still talking about group rights. That to us is still apartheid." Even...
After his release from prison, Sisulu said he had learned that "pressure" was the only way to make South Africa change, and that "the struggle in all its aspects" should continue. That remains the consensus among black leaders, who say that protests, boycotts and strikes will go on -- with the full blessing of Nelson Mandela -- and the A.N.C. will work to rebuild its organization inside South Africa. If De Klerk is to get negotiations on track, he will have to offer more concessions to prove that reconciliation rather than image building is his goal...