Word: botha
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Right-wingers attacked Danie Craven, head of the Rugby Board, for meeting with A.N.C. leaders. State President P.W. Botha also denounced the get- together. Yet some government leaders were privately pleased that the A.N.C. had dropped an antiapartheid line that declared, "There can be no normal sport in an abnormal society." The A.N.C., for its part, demonstrated a willingness to bargain, undermining the government's contention that the group is dedicated only to violence...
...State President P.W. Botha of South Africa, a big turnout in black townships for the Oct. 26 elections would signal that blacks have accepted his offer of power sharing as an alternative to revolution. So in an effort to get out the black vote, Botha's government has swollen registration lists, declared it illegal to call for a boycott, and banned major black organizations that have opposed the polling...
...same time, Botha must prove to skittish white citizens at home that there is a payoff for his initiatives. Last August he pulled the South African Defense Force out of Angola. He has agreed to a Nov. 1 deadline to set in motion the long-delayed independence process for Namibia. Afrikaner skeptics are muttering that independence for "South West," as they call Namibia, will just bring another Marxist government to power on South Africa's borders. Botha is using coverage of his road-show triumphs to counteract angry charges of "surrender" from the right-wing Conservative Party, which threatens...
...Botha's problem is how to maintain this fall's diplomatic momentum. He has skillfully orchestrated his parade into those African countries that are particularly vulnerable to South African pressure and blandishments. But he has yet to persuade the leaders of the key front-line states that his journeys offer more than cosmetic change. If anything, Pretoria's state of emergency is more repressive to antiapartheid forces now than it was two years ago. Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe, a voluble foe of "the Boers," said stiffly, "I don't know who else Botha will meet. I have no appointment with...
Such a comprehensive settlement would almost certainly open more doors in Africa to him. It would probably blunt the sanctions drive in Europe and America. It might even be enough to launch the regional heads-of-government conference that Botha wants so much to attend. A senior British diplomat observes that the front line is holding firm now, "but it is beginning to wobble." In the meantime, Botha can count on two more summits in coming months when Zaire's Mobutu Sese Seko and Mozambique's Joaquim Chissano pay the return visits they have promised. Yet the real payoff...