Breaking New Ground

The remarkable meeting in Senegal between 61 whites, most of them Afrikaners, and 16 black African National Congress activists has broken new ground in planning for the future of South Africa while at the same time making clearer than ever what needs to happen next if there is to be peaceful and constructive change.

What is new about this meeting is that it took place, that there was an openness on both sides, that each side came away with better understanding of the other and, above all, that it showed the potential for progress through further direct talks.

What is not new, but of no less importance, is the conclusion that there can be no real progress until South Africa frees its political prisoners--among them Nelson Mandela, the key ANC leader--and restores the legal status within South Africa of the ANC. This has been at the heart of every recent peace initiative. It was the foundation of the peace proposals of the commonwealth leaders.

Pretoria has preferred another agenda--campaigning to persuade the world that the fault lies with the ANC, depicted as a Marxist terrorist group at the beck and call of Moscow, whose refusal to renounce the use of force blocks progress toward a negotiated end to apartheid. That ignores some fundamental facts. The ANC turned to violence only when the government of South Africa itself resorted to the violence of repression to deny political freedom to the blacks. As those attending this conference affirmed, “the source of violence in South Africa derives from the fact that the use of force is fundamental to the existence and practice of racial domination.”

There can be successful negotiations if the participants accept that their goal is a democratic, non-racial alternative to apartheid, according to Alex Boraine, an organizer of the conference, who had left parliament to protest the centralization of power under President Pieter W. Botha.

Botha has committed himself to negotiating an end to apartheid. He has proposed, in recent days, allowing the blacks--but not all of the blacks--the right to choose those who will represent them in the negotiations. The distance between his promises and his performance is measured by the fact that this meeting could not take place in South Africa. His response to the model created by this conference will test his commitment to a nonviolent solution to his nation’s problems.