White Minority in South Africa Will Never Accept Black Rule, Botha Says

South African President Pieter W. Botha said Sunday that his country’s black majority must be given a say “at the highest level possible” but that the white minority will never accept black rule.

“I rule out a unitary state. White South Africans and many other minority groups will never accept a unitary state in which they will be dominated by majority rule,” Botha said in an interview on British television.

“We believe in the principle of one person, one vote as long as it is not in a unitary state.”

South Africa’s two other minority racial groups, Asians and people of mixed race, are represented in separate houses in a three-chamber Parliament. Blacks, however, are excluded and are viewed as citizens of tribal homelands.

“We must make provision on as many tiers of government as possible for them (blacks) to take part and to have a say in their own affairs, firstly,” Botha said in the interview. He added that blacks should “also have a say in those matters of common concern with us . . . eventually I would say to the highest level possible.”

Asked if he ruled out blacks ever sitting in the same Parliament as whites, he replied: “I don’t foresee the future in 30, 40 years’ time. If we take an evolutionary process, it is not for me to describe what will happen after the discussion had been completed.”