1 of 2 Nonwhites in Cabinet Quits, Assails Botha

One of the two nonwhite members of President Pieter W. Botha’s Cabinet resigned Monday, criticizing Botha as unwilling to end South Africa’s apartheid system and to adopt fundamental political, economic and social reforms.

The Rev. Allan Hendrickse, who served for nearly three years as a minister without portfolio, told the House of Representatives, the chamber reserved for Coloreds--those of mixed race--in the racially segregated Parliament, that he quit over Botha’s adamant refusal to commit himself to a timetable of specific reforms.

Hendrickse’s resignation seems likely to plunge the government into a constitutional crisis if his Labor Party chooses to delay or block legislation. It also seems likely to damage Botha’s efforts to open a dialogue on measures to bring blacks into the government’s “highest levels,” as he promised 2 1/2 years ago.

Scathing Attack

In a scathing attack on Botha, Hendrickse characterized the 71-year-old president as intolerant, uncompromising, sometimes double-dealing and, in the end, unwilling to relinquish real power.

“He wants to give, he says, but he wants to retain the power to decide finally,” Hendrickse told reporters later in Cape Town. “It is a pity because our future lies together.”

Botha sees only his own problems, understands only his own needs and acts according only to his own perceptions, Hendrickse said. He described the president as ideologically dedicated to protecting South Africa’s white minority, particularly his own Afrikaner people, and unwilling to compromise even when the interests of the whole country are at stake.

“You are not willing to acknowledge the perceptions and feelings of others that do not agree with yours,” Hendrickse said, reading from his handwritten letter of resignation. “I hereby tender my resignation from the Cabinet.”

Hendrickse’s resignation appears certain to put the Cabinet’s other nonwhite member, Amichand Rajbansi, chief minister of the Indian chamber in Parliament, under increased pressure to quit as well. This would bring the whole tricameral system to the brink of collapse.

The two men, appointed by Botha in September, 1984, were the first nonwhites to hold Cabinet posts in South Africa. Other Coloreds and Indians were subsequently named deputy ministers. Africans, who make up about 26 million of the country’s 35 million people, are still excluded from Parliament and have no vote in national affairs.

Botha, who had told Hendrickse in a letter earlier Monday that his continuing criticism of government policies is not compatible with Cabinet membership, accepted the resignation immediately.

Two white ministers and their deputies, who were sitting in the House of Representatives when Hendrickse announced his resignation in an impassioned hourlong speech, departed without commenting.

But Hendrickse was cheered loudly by the Colored members of Parliament, and his Labor Party unanimously endorsed his decision at a special caucus before he spoke.

Volcanic Temper

Hendrickse’s resignation followed an eruption of Botha’s volcanic temper last week when he publicly scolded Labor Party leaders during a parliamentary debate. Botha called them ungrateful and warned that their demands for faster and broader changes might “drive me away” from plans for step-by-step reforms.

“I feel more welcome among the black communities than I do among Coloreds,” Botha said, declaring it “scandalous” that the Afrikaners, descendants of Dutch, French and German settlers, should be criticized by the mixed-race Coloreds.

Hendrickse, 59, a Congregationalist clergyman and longtime community leader from Uitenhage, near Port Elizabeth, said his Labor Party will remain in Parliament, where it controls the House of Representatives. He added that it will not quit “participation politics,” as demanded by its critics on the left, to resume the “protest politics” that the party earlier followed.

Could Delay Legislation

Under the 1983 constitution, which established the present tricameral Parliament, Hendrickse will remain head of the Colored ministers’ council--the equivalent of a shadow Cabinet--as long as the Labor Party controls the House of Representatives. As party leader, he will be able to delay or even block proposed general legislation, which must be approved by all three houses of Parliament.

While the constitution permits the President’s Council to break a deadlock among the houses on most measures, effectively giving control to Botha’s National Party, all constitutional changes must be approved by three-quarters of the members of each house.

This gives the Labor Party a veto over Botha’s proposal to postpone the next election of the white members of Parliament from 1989, when a general election is to be held, until 1992.

Botha argues that two years is not enough time for him to carry out planned reforms before seeking a new mandate. However, Nationalist members of Parliament acknowledge candidly that they fear serious losses to the ultra-right Conservative Party if the election is held “prematurely.”

Constitutional Amendment

Hendrickse said that he had agreed with other members of the Cabinet to put off the white elections through a constitutional amendment. However, he said he asked Botha in return to lay out a timetable for reform that the Labor Party could use to justify its continued participation in the controversial tricameral system.

“His perception of reform did not agree at all with what we see as reform,” Hendrickse told reporters Monday, saying that Botha had then taken “a very dictatorial approach to my party,” insisting on its political obedience to him.

The Labor Party has become increasingly uncomfortable within Parliament and restive over what it sees as the slow pace of reform. It appears set to block the constitutional amendment and force a white election in 1989, when Colored and Indian parliamentary elections must be held--unless Botha gives specific undertakings on reform, including an end to apartheid, South Africa’s system of racial separation and minority rule.

“This will not become law,” Hendrickse said of the constitutional amendment, “until the National Party talks to us and explains how they interpret that mandate (given the Nationalists by white voters in May), not only in the interests of the whites of the National Party but also for the whole of South Africa.”