Word: bothas
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Since the government of State President P.W. Botha formally repealed its pass laws two years ago, South Africa's black workers have been free to go anywhere in the country in search of work.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...
...mixed-race Labor Party responded by threatening to quit the body. In a sudden, unexpected retreat, the government announced last week that it would withdraw the bills, rewrite them, and then submit them to all three houses of Parliament. The delay is considered only a temporary setback for Botha, who has ample time to force the legislation through the President's Council and into law before the national municipal elections, which are scheduled...
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...