S. Africa Rebels Voice Doubts on Peace Proposal

The African National Congress is being tempted to abandon its 25-year guerrilla struggle against minority white rule in South Africa. A new international proposal would legalize the organization and free imprisoned leaders, including its patriarch, Nelson Mandela.

The proposal, drafted by a special Commonwealth mission, is aimed at opening the first direct negotiations between the government in Pretoria and the outlawed black nationalist organization on the political future of South Africa. The objective would be to end the nation’s continuing racial violence.

When formally proposed, the Commonwealth peace plan is likely to win wide international support, Western and African diplomats here say, for it appears to offer the best chance that South Africa has yet had to break the spiral of violence.

Serious Misgivings

But the African National Congress, the principal fighting group in South Africa, has serious misgivings about the Commonwealth plan. The ANC has been struggling for a full revolution and thinks the plan would lock it into fruitless negotiations.

Although it has long demanded the release of Mandela and other political prisoners and its own legalization, it has many questions about the proposed negotiations, particularly their intended goal. It believes these questions must be answered before there can be even “talks about talks.”

Leaders of the group feel that a premature cease-fire would deprive it of most of its bargaining leverage in the proposed negotiations and lead to compromises that its supporters would reject.

“A trap,” one senior ANC member remarked, reflecting a general, if unofficial, view at the group’s headquarters here in Zambia. “We are not going to give up the armed struggle on the basis of promises,” the member said, “especially when we are making significant progress. Taken as it is, this proposal could be the death of the ANC.”

Oliver Tambo, the guerrilla group’s president, expressed considerable skepticism this week about the plan, particularly about negotiations that would reform rather than end apartheid.

“A cancer cannot be its own cure,” he said during a visit to Malaysia. “The fanatical racists who have spent more than half a century drawing up the apartheid system . . . cannot at the same time be the agents for the abolition of that system. . . . No amount of political maneuvering or killing of our people will blunt or stop the offensive to destroy racism in our country.”

Another official suggested here, as Tambo did in an interview with The Times last month, that negotiations could be started without a cease-fire and that if real progress were made, a truce could then be agreed upon.

Might Seem Intractable

Yet, to reject the Commonwealth proposal could make the African National Congress appear unreasonable and cost it vital support. Zambian President Kenneth D. Kaunda, long one of its staunchest supporters, has urged the rebel group to take up the Commonwealth proposal as “the last hope” the region has of avoiding a civil war in South Africa.

When Tambo replied that he would not negotiate with President Pieter W. Botha under the present circumstances, the state-run Times of Zambia declared in a front-page editorial, “He is entitled to his stand, but where does that leave our leaders’ often repeated efforts to, first of all, get the two sides together? The situation is getting desperate for everyone, and something must be done to stem the crisis.”

So the ANC has not rejected the Commonwealth proposal, hoping that its criticism will be heard before the plan is formally presented.

As outlined this week by Shridath Ramphal, the Commonwealth secretary general, the plan provides for a cease-fire by the government and ANC forces, followed by talks on the country’s political future.

To create the climate for such negotiations, the government would release political prisoners and legalize the ANC, which it banned in 1960. The guerrillas, in turn, would pledge their full efforts to end the violence that has engulfed South Africa’s black townships for most of the last two years.

Steps if Strife Persisted

Both the African National Congress and the white government have already raised questions about the terms of the cease-fire proposed by the Commonwealth group, about the ANC’s ability to halt the township unrest and about the organization, scope and goals of the proposed negotiations.

South Africa has also said that it would reserve the right to take whatever action is necessary to restore order if unrest should continue or spread after legalization of the ANC and the release of political prisoners. It asked Western governments in a special message to the recent summit conference in Tokyo to back its stand and defer further economic sanctions while it pursued negotiations.

Foreign Minister Roelof F. (Pik) Botha told South Africa’s Parliament in Cape Town this week that the continuing discussions with the Commonwealth group had reached “a very delicate stage.”

The Commonwealth group, made up of “eminent persons” from seven Commonwealth countries, will revisit South Africa on Tuesday seeking Pretoria’s acceptance of their proposal. Most political commentators there believe they will get at least a qualified yes from the government.

Over the past three weeks, President Botha and other members of his government have attempted to distinguish between a “good ANC,” made up of black nationalists whose opposition to apartheid whites have come to understand, and a Communist-led “bad ANC,” whose violence would always be fought.

In speeches and broadcasts, Botha and other officials have appealed to members of the “good ANC” to drop their armed struggle and return to the country and to the politics of negotiation.

Overture to Whites, Too

This bid was read by most political commentators in South Africa as aimed also at preparing white public opinion for such dramatic moves as legalization of the ANC and the release of Mandela, who is serving a life term in prison for sabotage.

But senior officials at ANC headquarters here remain skeptical and suspicious.

“All this means is that we are beginning to hurt them, and they must be crazy if they think we are going to stop that,” one senior member said. “And I doubt very much whether anyone will be deceived by such a transparent effort to split our ranks into good nationalists and bad Communists.”

The ANC nonetheless began warning its supporters several weeks ago not to be taken in by recent reforms such as abolition of the “pass” laws and by the promise of negotiations, and to hold fast to their goal of taking total power in South Africa.

The Commonwealth proposal, if pressed on the ANC, is likely to be rejected as an attempt to thwart present ANC strategy, which is based in part on an armed insurrection calling for seizing power, not sharing it as the Botha government proposes.

Insufficiently Radical

Among senior ANC members, the Commonwealth plan is seen as leading the organization into Pretoria’s continuing reform program and not bringing the “transfer of power” the organization demands as a minimum after its long years of struggle against apartheid.

“Much of the strength we have among the masses today is due to our refusal to do deals, to sell them out,” a rebel official said. “We are well aware that we could never carry the people into and through a bad deal. The minute we are found out--and we would be--they would resume the struggle.”

Many of the ANC’s questions about the Commonwealth proposal stem, in fact, from its need to ensure that any negotiations would lead to “people’s power,” as officials here put it.

“Are these talks about talks?” an ANC member asked. “Do they have limits on them? Who may participate? How will the results be ratified or accepted? We need to be certain, up front and without equivocation, that the result will be the abolition of apartheid and the establishment of a just and democratic system. Otherwise, we will fight on.”