Word: mandelas
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What a difference a year makes. Exactly 12 months ago, President F.W. de Klerk stunned his country by opening Parliament with a pledge to legalize the militantly antiapartheid African National Congress and release A.N.C. leader Nelson Mandela from jail. With those milestones behind him, De Klerk surpassed expectations again last week by declaring his intention to bring a swift end to legally sanctioned racial segregation. He called on Parliament to repeal ( immediately the remaining pillars of discrimination that dictate where blacks can work and live. "There is neither time nor room for turning back," De Klerk declared. "There is only...
...Klerk's speech capped one of the most fateful weeks in the long struggle against apartheid. Earlier, the A.N.C. and its major black power rival, the Zulu-based Inkatha Freedom Party, moved to end their bloody internecine strife. Mandela and Zulu Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi finally met for the first time in 28 years and asked their followers to "cease all attacks against one another with immediate effect." Feuding between the two factions has claimed as many as 8,000 lives since 1984. To underline the message, Mandela and Buthelezi agreed to tour the most violence-torn regions of the country...
...Klerk's antiapartheid moves seemed almost to be following a script written in Washington. When the U.S. Congress imposed economic sanctions in 1986, lawmakers said they would lift the ban only if Pretoria enacted a list of major reforms. These ranged from the release of Mandela to the abolition of the Population Registration Act. Now De Klerk has fulfilled or promised to meet each demand, leaving only the release of all political prisoners to be carried out. Pretoria is clearly hoping for a swift lifting of sanctions. However, U.S. officials said last week that the prisoner issue remained a sticking...
While the speech summoned South Africans to a new era of harmony, it also exposed the deep rifts that run through every level of the racially torn society. Despite the truce between Mandela and Buthelezi, the two leaders remain far apart in their strategy. As A.N.C. demonstrators called for immediate elections, Buthelezi applauded De Klerk's rejection of such a move, which the Zulu leader denounced as "a constitutional leap into the dark." At the same time, Buthelezi praised the De Klerk government for "lending its weight to breaking the back of apartheid...
Although the A.N.C. officially renounced antigovernment violence last year, Mandela still endorses mass demonstrations and strikes; Buthelezi calls them "anarchistic." He opposes the A.N.C. demand that economic sanctions continue against South Africa until blacks gain power. For its part, the A.N.C. accuses Inkatha of collaborating with the government by encouraging Zulus to live in their segregated homeland. Meanwhile, the A.N.C. has been burdened by the troubles of Mandela's wife Winnie, who faces trial as early as this week on charges of kidnapping and assault in connection with the 1988 death of a youth who allegedly died at the hands...