Word: botha
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Apparently President Botha knew it well, and conservatives in the Cabinet may have forced him to water down his message. When he appeared on the platform in Durban's oak-paneled city hall last Thursday, the President seemed preoccupied with protecting his right flank (see box). He made no mention of the term power sharing and explicitly vetoed the idea of adding a fourth, black branch of Parliament to the tricameral legislative system for whites, "coloreds" (mixed-race South Africans) and Indians that took effect last year. Botha declared only that "any future constitutional dispensation providing for participation...
...Botha disavow, as some had expected, South Africa's existing homelands (there are now ten, four of which are "independent"). Instead, he endorsed the concept as a "material part of the solution," but added that "independence cannot be forced on any community." If people in certain designated homelands did not accept "independence," he said vaguely, they "will remain a part of the South African nation, are South African citizens, and should be accommodated within political institutions within the boundaries of the Republic of South Africa." The President also dashed expectations of breakthrough reform surrounding South Africa's influx controls...
...order, Botha adopted a familiar, harsh note. The state of emergency would end only "as violence diminishes, as criminal and terrorist activities cease, and as the process of dialogue and communication acquires greater momentum." He again rejected demands for the unconditional release of Mandela, who was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1964. Botha insisted that Mandela first must renounce violence as a means of gaining political goals; Mandela had previously turned down that condition...
...negative reaction to the Durban speech gained in volume, Foreign Minister Botha insisted that the address had in fact lived up to its advance billing. He told TIME: "We have offered black participation. Now why doesn't the world community challenge us and say that if we stand for black participation, we should now implement it. Damn it, that would have been my reaction if I were a statesman abroad...
...State President P.W. Botha's ruling National Party, the Treurnicht-Marais challenge is no laughing matter, as last week's cautious performance at Durban proved. While Botha has pressed his agenda of modest reform, he has been forced to watch the right wing carefully. A senior National Party official estimated this month that of South Africa's 4.9 million whites (60% of whom are Afrikaners), about 20% support ultraconservative groups that insist on retaining total apartheid. If the President continues on his path of reform, the official predicted, the extreme right might increase its strength by 6% to 8%. Other...