The World - News from April 9, 1986

South Africa’s governing National Party called a rare congress in an effort to head off a white backlash against racial reforms. The party newspaper, the Nationalist, warned that revolutionaries are turning white fear and concern into hatred and anti-black violence. It said that the congress, scheduled in August, is needed to explain why the government of President Pieter W. Botha is modifying apartheid into a system of “cooperative coexistence.” Whites opposed to any accommodation with blacks have formed two political parties to Botha’s right, and Afrikaner groups that condone white-supremacist violence have also sprung up.