Word: klerk
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Despite its resemblance to a superstar tour, Mandela's visit to the U.S. has a deeply serious purpose. His objective is to shore up the A.N.C.'s negotiating position as it enters into talks with South African President F.W. de Klerk about the shape of a new constitution that would for the first time enfranchise the 26 million blacks who represent 68% of South Africa's population. Mandela is seeking assurances that the U.S. will not prematurely loosen the economic sanctions it imposed on Pretoria in 1986. He is also looking for "money in buckets" to help the A.N.C., unbanned...
Like a media-savvy pol -- and a single-minded revolutionary -- Mandela repeated at every opportunity his simple line that because apartheid is still alive and well, it is too soon to reward Pretoria for the reforms De Klerk has made, some of which are more cosmetic than real. Mandela can also hope to return home with several million dollars in new contributions to the A.N.C. In New York a $2,500-a-ticket fund raiser hosted by Eddie Murphy, Spike Lee and Robert De Niro aimed to raise $500,000 from a celebrity crowd that included Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward...
...Pretoria are not expected to resume until mid-July. In the meantime, whatever hope there may have been in South Africa that Mandela's release would quickly usher in a new multiracial democracy has begun to fade. Now activists say it is important to draw attention to De Klerk's failure to take such steps as lifting the Internal Security Act, which permits thousands of South Africans to be imprisoned without trial. "We have to think about civil disobedience again," says Robinson. "Our challenge is to help Americans distinguish between what is important and what...
Still, De Klerk's skillfully orchestrated reforms have stolen some of Mandela's momentum. Just as the black leader headed for North America, the South African President lifted the state of emergency from all provinces except Natal, the site of fierce fighting between A.N.C. militants and supporters of the rival Inkatha movement. Then, on the eve of Mandela's arrival in New York, De Klerk made good on his promise to revoke the Separate Amenities Act that for nearly four decades had legalized segregation. The South African Parliament repealed the law, opening the country's parks, beaches, swimming pools, services...
...prospect of further change that those concessions open up is one reason that Mandela's life -- and De Klerk's -- could be at risk. A South African newspaper, Vrye Weekblad, last week reported that it had uncovered a right- wing plot to murder Mandela, De Klerk and other figures. According to the paper, the plot was worked out by former Nazi Captain Heinrich Beissner, a regional head of the right-wing Afrikaner Resistance Movement. It called for Mandela to be shot by a sniper at Johannesburg's Jan Smuts Airport when he returned to South Africa on July...