South African Businessmen, Guerrillas Meet

A delegation of white South African businessmen defied their government Friday and flew to a meeting in Zambia with black guerrilla leaders dedicated to overthrowing white rule in South Africa.

Both sides said the meeting could be the start of an effort to bring peace to South Africa.

The unprecedented meeting between the businessmen and leaders of the outlawed African National Congress lasted six hours at this remote game park about 250 miles east of Lusaka, the Zambian capital.

“We felt, they and us, that this has been a very important contribution to the process of seeking ways and means of ending the violence of apartheid,” said Oliver Tambo, president of the African National Congress.

Gavin Relly, chairman of South Africa’s giant Anglo American mining and mineral-marketing company, said he emerged from the talks “with a good sense that more talks might lead to some fruitful conclusion.”

Relly and his seven-member delegation, including two South African newspaper editors, flew back to Johannesburg in a private jet after the talks. On arrival in South Africa, they issued a statement that said, “There was no question of any negotiations, agreement or decision, but it was felt that ground existed for further valuable discussions.”

In addition to Relly, the South Africans were Harald Pakendorf, editor of the Afrikaans-language newspaper Die Vaderland; Tertius Myburgh, editor of the Sunday Times; Anglo American chief executive Zac de Beer; Tony Bloom, head of Premier Milling, a food processor; Hugh Murray, editor of the magazine Leadership S.A., and Pieter Sorour, head of the South African Foundation.

Tambo was accompanied by five members of the African National Congress executive committee.

The meeting followed months of increasing criticism by white business leaders of the South African government’s failure to propose specific race reforms.

South African President Pieter W. Botha’s hard-line speech in August dimmed hopes of reform, and that, along with continuing riots and threats of international sanctions, battered the once-stable economy.

Foreign banks declined to extend South African loans, and the value of the South African rand slumped to about 35 cents, a quarter of its value four years ago. The government was forced to freeze foreign loan repayments until the end of the year, bringing more business appeals for tangible reforms to end the rioting and restore the nation’s economic credibility.

Reform Hopes Raised

Reform hopes were revived by two developments this week. On Wednesday, Botha announced that blacks stripped of their citizenship by the creation of black homelands may have their citizenship restored, and on Thursday, a presidential advisory panel urged scrapping the pass laws that restrict blacks seeking to live and work in urban areas.

Tambo and Relly said they were likely to meet again, but no date was set.

“We have left the door open for further meetings,” Tambo said. “We felt this was a very useful beginning in which we exchanged ideas on the South African situation. Perhaps at future meetings we might even begin to agree about what exactly should be done.”

Tambo said he had told the businessmen bluntly that if the African National Congress ever took power in South Africa, it would mean the nationalization of some major corporations.

“They represent tremendous wealth in the midst of unspeakable poverty,” he said. “Some move should be made toward bridging this gap and (achieving) a more equitable distribution of wealth.”

At Private Lodge

Strict secrecy and security surrounded the talks, which were held at a private lodge of Zambian President Kenneth D. Kaunda in this arid scrubland teeming with elephants and hippopotamuses. The location was not announced in advance.

Kaunda, who has long sought to bring about an end to apartheid by peaceful means rather than violence, sat in for most of the discussions.

President Botha opposed the meeting and said it would be “disloyal” of the businessmen to meet with representatives of an outlawed organization that conducts guerrilla war against the white-minority government.

There was speculation in South Africa that the meeting could lead to talks between Botha and the African National Congress. But Botha has said he will never talk to the congress unless it and its jailed leader, Nelson Mandela, renounce violence.

Mandela, 67, remains the leader of the congress, which was banned by the South African government in 1960 and has operated from other African countries, including Zambia.

Future Without Apartheid

Tambo, who once shared a Johannesburg law practice with Mandela, said, “There is an escalation of violence in South Africa, and the future promises nothing but more and more violence until we reach a decision that the cause of all violence, the apartheid system, is wound up.”

Relly, describing South African big business as reformist, called for the unconditional release of Mandela, who has been imprisoned for life since a 1964 conviction on charges of planning sabotage.

Asked about Botha’s statement that the businessmen were disloyal, Relly said, “I would have thought that for South Africans of whatever persuasion to come together and discuss the future of their country was a perfectly legitimate occupation.”

As for contacts with the African National Congress, Relly said: “I believe today in the context of the changes that have been taking place (in South Africa), particularly in relation to citizenship and a number of discriminatory laws, and the prospect of the rest of the trappings of apartheid disappearing, the positions are not as greatly antagonistic as some might think.”