Word: klerk
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...What makes you say that President De Klerk is a "man of integrity...
Mandela has already committed himself to serve as the "facilitator" for negotiations between the black majority and the white minority government to draw up a new constitution granting power to all races. In fact, there will have to be several stages before that. While State President F.W. de Klerk's legalization of the African National Congress earlier this month was accompanied by relaxation measures that met most of the A.N.C.'s preconditions, the 3 1/2-year-old state of emergency remains in place and up to 300 activists are still in jail. That situation, says Mandela, will have to change...
...Klerk first announced that Mandela would be released "without delay" on Feb. 2. Then came a nerve-racking interval, recalling the years of slice-at-a- time tactics the government has used to neutralize black reaction. Mandela was kept waiting while the government whittled away at its proviso that he must renounce violence. Last Saturday De Klerk simply declared, "I came to the conclusion that he is committed to a peaceful solution and a peaceful process." Pretoria had long worried that when Mandela appeared on the streets of Soweto once again, black townships all over the country would explode into...
Such comments indicate the South African government's confidence that it has won a round with its concessions, including Mandela's release, and that Pretoria will be able to control the negotiating process. By freeing the antiapartheid movement's spiritual leader, De Klerk believes he is turning a myth back into a man. By legalizing the A.N.C., he removes its cloak of underground heroism and turns it into an ordinary political party. Both Mandela and his organization will then be forced by circumstance and expectation to make compromises. And compromises are expected to anger and disillusion segments of the black...
From Pretoria's point of view, the longer talks drag on, the better. De Klerk hopes to win international approval -- and the end of economic sanctions -- by simply opening negotiations with legitimate black leaders. He also hopes that prolonged talks will stall the antiapartheid movement and drain the fervor from its protests...