Word: botha
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...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...
...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...
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...
...Niekerk said before the Botha government imposed a ban on press coverage, American press coverage of the violence there dealt a psychological blow to South Africans who support apartheid...
...Botha told Parliament he will shortly set an election date for later this year, probably by September, following which he will bestow the seal of the republic on his successor. Since the National Party is certain to retain power and De Klerk has already won the party's vote of confidence, he will become the new chief executive. Tired of the brooding, dictatorial presence of Botha, few will shed tears for the departure of the Great Crocodile...