Word: klerk
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...POLITICAL DEATHS, 1992 was one of the bloodiest years in South African history -- bloody enough so that the threat of more violence and economic ruin has finally brought politicians to their senses. Seven months after negotiations collapsed, the African National Congress approved a compromise with President F.W. de Klerk's National Party that would establish a government with a guaranteed white minority for up to five years. Says A.N.C. Secretary General Cyril Ramaphosa: "This is the proposal that will break the deadlock...
...plan is approved by all major parties when full-scale negotiations resume in March, the first free elections will be held by early 1994, when A.N.C. leader Nelson Mandela will probably replace De Klerk as President of South Africa. The deal, under which the A.N.C. will call for an end to international sanctions, involves significant concessions from both sides. A < unity government including De Klerk's party would delay pure majority rule for the A.N.C. until 1999. But De Klerk's party in turn has abandoned its dream of writing a scheme for permanent power sharing into the new constitution...
...MOST UNSEASONAL ACT. DAYS BEFORE Christmas and with immediate effect, President F.W. De Klerk suspended or retired 23 of South Africa's top officers, including two generals and four brigadiers. All are under suspicion of clandestine activities -- some involving hit-squad murders -- designed to undermine his political reforms. De Klerk dismissed talk of an attempted military coup, saying there was no threat to South Africa's security. But criminal charges could follow next year. "We're not dealing with kids," he said...
...year long, De Klerk's credibility has been battered by charges of dirty dealings within his defense forces. Thus his crackdown on these mavericks has almost certainly scored him some valuable points -- enough, perhaps, that in spite of enduring a year of violence, crime and political stalemate, South Africans are beginning to see hope for l993. "We are closing the year on a high note," Nelson Mandela told the Sowetan, Johannesburg's black newspaper...
...truth, the De Klerk government has done precious little to pave the way for meaningful discussions to occur concerning the transfer of power. Modern day South Africa represents a dire portrait of a doomed government desperately clinging to the slimmest hope of staying in office...