S. Africa Woos ANC for Role in Peace Process

As President Pieter W. Botha moves South Africa cautiously toward negotiations on the country’s future, the government finds itself, quite unexpectedly, wooing the outlawed African National Congress as a key participant.

While some members of Botha’s Cabinet continue to denounce the congress as a Communist-led band of terrorists threatening the entire nation, others implicitly accept the rebels’ centrality in any negotiations, acknowledging that any talks without the participation of ANC supporters would be fruitless.

The release of Nelson Mandela and other imprisoned ANC leaders is under active consideration to give the negotiating process momentum, according to senior government officials, who say the only real question on the release now is when.

Council Elections

ANC supporters also would be encouraged to run in elections for black representatives on a proposed national council, which would begin the preliminary negotiations on a new constitution, even though the ANC was banned by the South African Parliament in 1960.

The Freedom Charter, the rebels’ basic manifesto since its adoption in 1955, has been described recently by Cabinet members as “a good document” and a possible “point of departure,” although it was banned for many years as subversive.

And the “slightest signal” of rebel interest in the proposed talks would be fully reciprocated, the government’s principal negotiator said, in “the spirit of national reconciliation.”

“If the ANC would exhibit any serious intention of becoming part of the peace process, I am sure the government would look very closely at any provisions that stood in the way,” Stoffel van der Merwe, the deputy minister of constitutional development and information, remarked in a lengthy interview reviewing the government’s negotiating efforts.

If the ANC, which since 1961 has waged an “armed struggle” against minority white rule here, took up earlier proposals for a “suspension of violence,” the government would look closely, if warily, at matching moves, Van der Merwe said.

“In a process like this, one works a great deal with signals, over and above firm statements,” he continued. “If the ANC said it (was) willing to suspend violence, it might not be enough for the government to legalize them, but it might be enough to start a process that could lead to something else.”

With his mandate from Botha as the government’s principal negotiator, Van der Merwe, 48, a political scientist and diplomat by training, has been sending more and more signals to the rebels’ exiled leadership in Lusaka, Zambia but getting “no positive signals” in return. “So long as their position is expressed in absolute terms, one doesn’t get anywhere,” he complained.

The government’s signals have proliferated so rapidly in recent weeks that its critics in the opposition Conservative Party have accused it of “hastening the National (Party) sellout of the Afrikaner people and whites in general.”

“Who would have thought that P. W. Botha would be the man to bring in an ANC government?” a Conservative member of Parliament said during a debate on reform measures this month. “But what else, other than a sellout, can these overtures by the National Party to the ANC mean?”

Woos ANC Supporters

While its official position remains that there are many other leaders with equally valid claims to represent the country’s black majority and that the ANC, through the violence of its prolonged “armed struggle,” has disqualified itself from negotiations, government efforts to promote negotiations have effectively focused on drawing in the ANC’s supporters, if not the organization itself.

“The ANC, being a banned organization, will not be able to participate under its own flag,” Van der Merwe said, speaking specifically of elections to the proposed national council. “But there is an open invitation that any organization committing itself to a peaceful future is then welcome to participate in the political process.

“If the ANC would change its policy of violence and say, ‘We accept the bona fides of the (negotiating) process, and we are wiling to participate on the basis of peaceful negotiations,’ the government would not be able to resist the pressure to legalize it.”

Among those trying to promote a political dialogue to resolve the country’s problems, there is a broad “assumption,” Van der Merwe said, that “negotiations will have to take place with the African National Congress.”

“But, in the short term, one has to mobilize the potential good will among the vast majority of people along with their preference for a peaceful life,” he said. He contended that, while recent opinion surveys by the government showed a large “positive orientation toward the ANC,” there was “surprisingly small” support for its armed struggle and socialist program.

The government’s most dramatic initiative is still waiting to be played out.

Six weeks ago, Botha lifted a previous government requirement that political prisoners, such as Mandela, denounce violence as a political weapon before their release, and he suggested that Govan Mbeki, who not only is an ANC stalwart but one of the most prominent Communists in the organization, might be released soon from Robben Island, the penal colony off Cape Town.

Mandela Freedom Hinted

The implication, senior government officials have since confirmed, was that Mandela, a leader whose following has only increased during his 25 years of imprisonment, would also be released, possibly within six months.

“The release of Mandela would have tremendous symbolic and emotional effect,” Van der Merwe said, acknowledging Mandela’s release as one of the most vexing questions facing the government. “But so would the political implications, both positive and negative,” he added.

The government wants to release Mandela into what Van der Merwe described as “a climate of peaceful negotiation,” implicitly accepting the ANC leader, jailed on charges of sabotage as part of an ANC plot to overthrow the government, as one of the major players today on the country’s political scene.

But Mandela’s release is tied, Van der Merwe implied, to a broader decision that could involve the earlier legalization of the ANC. “It is no use letting the guy out of jail if you have to rearrest him the next day,” he said, acknowledging that Mandela, now 69, would be likely to resume his political activities and that the government would consequently have to accept the ANC.

Van der Merwe also stressed the necessity, as the government sees it, for representation of the ANC or its supporters in the proposed national council, which will lay the groundwork for a constitutional convention while managing black affairs.

Although the controversial national council is criticized by blacks as a substitute for a full convention, Van der Merwe characterized it as a proposal that lies many months in the future, though the legislation was recently introduced to authorize its formal establishment.

‘Climate . . . Not Ripe’

“The climate at this moment is not ripe enough to get the national council off the ground in a satisfactory way,” Van der Merwe said while National Party whips fought to defend the proposal in Parliament. “But the climate for it is much better than a year ago or two years ago, and it makes sense to have the machinery in place when it is needed.”

Van der Merwe, trying to defend the proposed council against widespread black criticism, described it as a forum for consultations, where non-binding decisions would be based on consensus in an effort to prepare the way for a national convention, which has long been an ANC goal.

He quickly rattled off the names of several avowed ANC supporters, including former officials of the outlawed organization, with more than a hint that they would be welcomed as members of the council.

But they and many others, including Zulu Chief Mangosuthu G. Buthelezi, leader of the Inkatha movement, have set conditions--among them the lifting of the present state of emergency, the legalization of the ANC and other outlawed organizations, the release of political prisoners and the return of exiles--for their participation in the council that raise serious questions about its ultimate viability.

“More important than the preconditions,” Van der Merwe commented, “are the reasons why they put these preconditions. If you take away those conditions without affecting the underlying reasons, they would just find others.”

Reservoir of Good Will

The government’s main focus in promoting negotiations, he continued, is “that vast body of good will running throughout South African society--blacks, whites, Coloreds (those of mixed race) and Indians,” who he believes want a quick and peaceful resolution of the country’s crisis.

The main problem, he said, is the “layer of suspicion”--blacks toward whites, and whites toward blacks--that “covers the good will and makes it impossible to mobilize it.”

“If there is a general will among the people to make a success of a political system, then you can make do with imperfect instruments,” Van der Merwe said, quoting one of his own political science lectures. “But if the will is not there, the most perfect instruments will get you nowhere.”

His main mission thus has increasingly become the broadening of mutual trust in the country as a foundation for political compromise.

“It is not only doing the right thing,” he said, “but explaining it in the right way. It is not only deeds, but communications. You have to continue with reform initiatives, as we will, but you also have to communicate about them, their implications and their significance.”