Word: stoffels
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This is exactly the kind of talk that makes whites insist on some kind of veto power under a new system. The existence of so many uneducated and unemployed blacks, says government negotiator Stoffel van der Merwe, "makes it more important to have a constitution in which the power of the majority is very definitely subject to checks and balances...
...Klerk was a late-blooming reformer. "All of us were very much committed to separate development," says Education Minister Stoffel van der Merwe, a friend and colleague. "Each of us at some time or other had to change his mind. Somewhere along the line De Klerk changed his." The futility of apartheid probably came to him in the same gradual way it dawned on many whites: as hundreds of thousands of blacks flooded the cities, separation was no longer practical...
...step was a huge psychological leap for the National Party. But, acknowledges Roelf Meyer, Deputy Minister for Constitutional Development, "there is no chance of a legitimate process of negotiations if only three- quarters of the players are around the table." Adds Education Minister Stoffel van der Merwe: "Mr. de Klerk has fully accepted that blacks, whoever they are, have a right to participate...
...final warning of a government clampdown came last month from Home Affairs Minister Stoffel Botha. It meant that the regime could close the Weekly Mail at any moment. Last week Botha did just that, barring publication of the small (circ. 25,000), liberal, antiapartheid tabloid for four weeks. In a statement released in Pretoria, Botha accused the Mail of "causing a threat to the safety of the public or to the maintenance of public order...
Mandela's continued imprisonment poses a dilemma for Pretoria, which fears that his release could set off widespread black unrest. "Humanitarian considerations must always be weighed against the possibility that civil uprising, violence and terrorism could follow," said Information Minister Stoffel van der Merwe. At least one progovernment voice disagreed. Asked Beeld, the country's largest Afrikaans-language daily: "Do we really want to imprint into our history that we let an old man die in jail while there was the opportunity to negotiate with him on the aspirations of his people...