Word: klerk
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...first glance, President F.W. de Klerk's long-awaited proposals for revamping South Africa's constitution, unveiled last week, look just fine. But on closer scrutiny some major defects appear. The country's blacks would vote for a national government for the first time ever. A bicameral parliament would consist of one chamber elected by proportional representation and a second representing nine newly created regions, with the power to veto legislation. The presidency would become a troika of representatives of the three major parliamentary parties...
President F.W. de Klerk was pulling no punches. In a speech before his governing National Party in the conservative stronghold of Ventersdorp last week, he accused right-wing groups like the Afrikaner Resistance Movement (A.W.B.) of "looking for trouble." Even as he spoke, local A.W.B. extremists who oppose his dismantling of apartheid were doing just that. Hundreds, clad in khaki, marched on the hall where he was appearing and clashed with police in a melee that left at least three dead and 53 injured...
...minutes as authorities drove back the advancing A.W.B. members. A block away whites hurled rocks at a van carrying blacks. When the vehicle lost control and toppled into the crowd, killing one extremist, enraged whites opened fire and at least four blacks were injured. Ironically, De Klerk came to Ventersdorp to seek the support of rural white conservatives, who are rapidly deserting the National Party because of his reforms...
President F.W. de Klerk is often hailed for his boldness in ending apartheid, but South Africans also regard him as a cautious man. Last week he displayed both traits as he appeared to end stonewalling on "Inkathagate," the scandal over disclosures that Pretoria interfered in black politics by secretly funding Inkatha Freedom Party, a rival of the African National Congress. Denying that he had a double agenda, De Klerk nonetheless sidelined two Cabinet members at the center of the doubts about the government's integrity: Defense Minister Magnus Malan and Law and Order Minister Adriaan Vlok. But rather than dismiss...
...disclosures of secrecy and subterfuge undermined De Klerk's credibility at a critical moment. After destroying the pillars of apartheid and persuading the U.S. and other countries to drop their sanctions against South Africa, De Klerk must try to get the A.N.C. and other black groups to the negotiating table to write a new constitution that would extend voting rights to the black majority. "Inkathagate," as the press dubbed the affair, may delay the start of an all-party conference, originally planned as early as September, where the major political groups will decide how to structure negotiations. Use of secret...