Botha Outlines Apartheid Reforms; Blacks Unmoved

President Pieter W. Botha, labeling apartheid an “outdated concept,” outlined Friday a broad package of political, economic and social reforms that South Africa’s government plans to enact this year in an effort to meet the demands of the rising black revolt against the white minority government.

In his speech at the annual meeting of Parliament here, Botha coupled his proposed reforms with his clearest statement yet of principles he believes should serve as goals for these negotiations and for the future of South Africa as it abandons apartheid.

“We believe that human dignity, life, liberty and property of all must be protected, regardless of color, race, creed or religion,” he said. “We believe that a democratic system of government, which must accommodate all legitimate political aspirations of all the South African communities, must be negotiated. All South Africans must be placed in a position where they can participate in government through their elected representatives.”

Most of the reforms Botha put forward have been mentioned by him or other senior officials before, but their inclusion in his speech at the opening of Parliament gave them the force of government policy.

Black and opposition leaders were unimpressed.

“It holds no hope for us,” Bishop Desmond Tutu, the Nobel Peace laureate, said in Johannesburg. “Botha has ignored all the main issues, starting with the lifting of the six-month-old state of emergency and the withdrawal of troops from our (black ghetto) townships.”

On the other hand, Botha’s declaration that South Africa had “outgrown . . . the outdated concept of apartheid” drew immediate right-wing criticism.

“This was the final farewell to apartheid,” said Andries Treurnicht, leader of the Conservative Party. “The result will be black-majority rule.”

The measures Botha outlined include repeal of the present “pass law” system that requires blacks working and living in urban areas reserved for whites to have government permission, and the restoration of South African citizenship to many of the blacks who were made citizens of nominally independent tribal homelands.

Other planned legislation would allow blacks to own their homes, shops and farms and to operate small businesses free of most of the government regulations that currently encumber South African entrepreneurs.

Additional elements of the program include a sharp increase in government spending in an effort to ensure equal--although still separate--education for all races, and for major development projects in impoverished rural areas to benefit blacks.

Multiracial Council

But, in the government’s view, the most important proposal was Botha’s offer to establish a new, multiracial national council in which the government would negotiate with black leaders on the future sharing of political power in South Africa.

Blacks would also be included in regional and provincial government bodies for the first time, Botha said, in a preliminary effort to give them a share in political power at the local level.

Taken together, these statements and the legislative measures that Botha put before Parliament constitute the broadest reform program yet announced by South Africa’s minority white government.

But they still fell far short of the demands of the country’s 25-million black majority, and they also drew criticism from right-wing whites.

Like Tutu, the Rev. C.F. Beyers Naude, general secretary of the South African Council of Churches, was unmollified by Botha’s program. Botha “lost his last chance to create a new future for the whole of South Africa” by limiting the reforms, making them piecemeal and avoiding the central issue of majority rule, Naude said.

“It is meaningless to talk of equal education without equal political rights or of title deeds without making the land available,” Naude said in Johannesburg.

“Equally, there is a serious contradiction in talking about an undivided South Africa and at the same time . . . entrenching the position of minorities here.”

‘No Glimmer of Hope’

And Dr. Nthato Motlana, a prominent black physician who heads the moderate Soweto Civic Assn. in the black satellite city outside Johannesburg, said he saw “no glimmer of hope, not a hint of it” in Botha’s proposal.

“Only sellouts will go into this council,” Motlana predicted. “Legitimate black leaders won’t join. . . . We want a full-fledged new constitution, not bits and pieces of reforms.”

No details were given on the proposed new council or the extent of its powers, except that it would be advisory, made up of representatives of the government and black leaders and chaired by the president. Similar proposals were repeatedly rebuffed over the past year by blacks who saw them as falling short of real power-sharing.

(In Washington, the Reagan Administration praised Botha’s commitment to end apartheid but added that it wants to see the ideas put into action.

(“We’ve looked at the speech, and we’ve seen some positive signs in it, but we will wait for a specific understanding of how it is to be implemented,” White House spokesman Larry Speakes said.)

White business groups, now among the most active promoters of major political reform in South Africa, welcomed Botha’s declarations as a major move forward, expressing hope that the speech would be quickly followed by implementing legislation.

Gavin Relly, chairman of the industrial and mining giant Anglo American Corp. who met four months ago with leaders of the African National Congress, described the speech as “very positive” and said the recognition of a common South African citizenship for all, whether black or white, would provide “considerable momentum for the reform process.”

Party Debates ‘Agonizing’

Botha’s statement was, in fact, the furthest that the president has gone in rejecting the country’s system of legalized racial segregation and minority white rule and the philosophy of racial supremacy behind it, according to members of Parliament from the president’s ruling National Party, who described the party’s internal debates as “agonizing.”

“The break with the past is now complete,” one National Party member of Parliament said Friday, asking not to be quoted by name, “and it has been an emotionally wrenching, draining affair for the party and the president.

“He said many of the same things last January, it is true, and several times during the course of the year. There are three differences now:

“First, the president is now announcing the changes as government policy, not just so much political rhetoric, and, secondly, he is proposing legislation to implement the reforms as quickly as possible. Finally, he realizes, as we all do now, that power--shared power--is the only thing that will satisfy people, and that is what we must get on with.”

This point was disputed by opposition leaders, who said that while declaring apartheid to be “outmoded” and its manifestations, such as the pass laws, to be unworkable and costly, Botha did not directly denounce apartheid or announce the government’s intention to dismantle the system.

Pass Laws Most-Hated

Yet the measures announced by Botha are far-reaching, and none more so than the proposed changes in “influx control,” the restrictions barring blacks from entering urban areas without permits stamped in their pass books.

Those restrictions are among the most-hated aspects of apartheid, and their elimination will have great symbolic impact here, although Botha said the government will replace them with “orderly urbanization” measures and will issue new identity documents to all, including whites.

Blacks have been restricted from entering urban areas since the middle of the 18th Century, and there have been more than 20 million arrests this century for violation of these laws.

The dompas or reference book, that a black must carry under these laws has become the symbol of his third-class status in South Africa, ranking not only after whites but also Indians and Coloreds, as persons of mixed race are classified.