Word: botha
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Since the government of State President P.W. Botha formally repealed its pass laws two years ago, South Africa's black workers have been free to go anywhere in the country in search of work. There is a hitch: they are still expected to comply with the Group Areas Act, an apartheid law that compels them to live in segregated nonwhite homelands and townships. For many, the only recourse has been to leave the townships and rent housing from white owners in the cities or erect makeshift shacks on idle farmland, roadsides and in parks and / gardens. The result: as many...
...effort to stem the flow of nonwhites into the cities, President Botha last month introduced five new housing-related bills, which were described by the South African weekly Financial Mail as "the government's most regressive political step since Botha became National Party leader eleven years ago." The bills would provide for compulsory eviction of squatters and the destruction of their shacks; government-ordered improvements in gray-area buildings, which could be used to force blacks to move out; and stiff penalties for squatters and landowners who tolerate them...
...jail and set off an explosion of violent protest in the country's black townships. Justice Minister Kobie Coetsee, who oversees the prison system, made a point of visiting Mandela at Tygerberg. Minister of Health Willem van Niekerk sent regular bulletins from the doctors to State President P.W. Botha. In reply to a worried letter from the Rev. Frank Chikane, general secretary of the South African Council of Churches, Botha assured him, "We are even more concerned and do wish Mr. Mandela a speedy recovery." Botha added that the patient had said he was satisfied with the treatment...
Mandela's illness triggered fresh demands from around the world for his release. Botha knows if Mandela dies an imprisoned martyr, widespread violence is likely. On the other hand, his release might be greeted by an uncontrollable uprising of millions of black South Africans for whom he is the leading symbol of resistance to the apartheid system. Last week Botha renewed his long-standing offer to free Mandela if he would publicly renounce the use of violence for political ends -- a bargain Mandela has repeatedly refused on the grounds that prisoners cannot make deals...
Addressing a congress of the ruling National Party in Durban, Botha said he did not think Mandela should "choose to go back to prison" and that he hoped Mandela "will make it possible for me to act in a humane way." That meant, he said, that he was prepared to release Mandela if he would reject political violence and pledge not to support those...