Shultz Upbeat on S. Africa, Pledges Help to Moderates

Secretary of State George P. Shultz, avoiding even the word sanctions, sketched a remarkably sunny vision of South Africa’s future Tuesday and promised U.S. economic, political and diplomatic support to moderate groups seeking to end apartheid by democratic means.

Shultz’s speech, billed in advance as a major policy statement, came as the Reagan Administration was completing a report on the first year of U.S. economic sanctions against South Africa. The sanctions were imposed by Congress last October over the objections of President Reagan.

The report, which is expected to call for relaxation of pressure on the white-led government, is scheduled to be sent to Capitol Hill on Friday.

Although Shultz said nothing about the sanctions, a senior Administration official who briefed reporters in advance of the speech said, “We think our influence has been weakened, at least for the time being,” by the congressionally ordered restrictions on U.S. economic dealings with South Africa.

The official said the purpose of the Shultz speech, to a black-tie audience at a dinner sponsored by the Business Council for International Understanding, was to buck up the morale of moderate South Africans, both black and white, who are seeking to end the apartheid system of racial separation and white-minority government without violence and without substituting a black totalitarian government.

“The sanctions debate is behind us--that is last year’s agenda,” the official said.

Shultz said that future U.S. policy is aimed at “a rapid end to apartheid, achieved by negotiations among all South Africans.”

“We intend to play an active role in pursuit of that goal--but active in support of those South Africans who are working to bring about through peaceful means a just and democratic society.

“The time has come for South Africans to act on their hopes, not their fears,” Shultz said. “They will find a friend in the United States when they do so, a friend that is realistic in its understanding, hopeful in its expectations and optimistic in its vision of what they can achieve.

“If the contending parties in South Africa are ready to take risks for peace, they may be assured of the active political, diplomatic and economic support of the United States and its allies,” he said.

The speech condemned apartheid but it contained no hint of new U.S. pressure on the government of President Pieter W. Botha.

“I share the anger that all Americans feel when children are thrown into detention without charge and physically abused,” Shultz said. “And, because of my job, I particularly feel the frustration of having only limited influence, of not being able to make things right down there. That, too, is a reality.

“It is not within the power of the United States or any other country to impose a solution on South Africa’s problems,” he added.

The senior official said the United States has received requests from moderate elements throughout South Africa to spell out the American view of the country’s future.

The official conceded that Shultz spoke in generalities but he declared: “We can’t go beyond these broad precepts. If we did, we would be writing their constitution for them.”

He called the speech “powerful stuff.”

Shultz said the United States will support efforts to create “a new constitutional order for a united South Africa, establishing political, economic and social rights for all South Africans without regard to race, language, national origin or religion.”

He also called for democratic elections with “multiparty participation,” effective guarantees of basic human rights and an economic system that “enables South Africans to realize the fruits of their labor, acquire and own property and attain a decent standard of living.”

Shultz did not say if he thinks such reforms are likely. The senior official conceded that in the past year, the political situation in South Africa has hardened.

Nevertheless, Shultz was resolutely optimistic. He cited as reasons for hope the recent contacts between the African National Congress and white South Africans, the growth of black labor unions and the declaration by the Dutch Reformed Church, once a bastion of white supremacy, that apartheid is morally wrong.

The senior official said Shultz’s upbeat tone was intended to convince Americans that the situation is not hopeless.

“It is important not to have a sense of fatalism, to conclude that the situation is so intractable that we should all walk away from it,” the official said.

Shultz said the United States will do all it can to promote dialogue between black and white elements in South Africa.

“Apartheid has succeeded all too well in its design of keeping the races apart,” Shultz said. “South Africans of different races may talk about one another all the time, but they all too rarely talk to one another.

“As South Africans move toward meaningful negotiations, the United States would be willing to encourage this process,” he said. “One of the ways we could encourage it would be to expand our efforts to help the victims of apartheid lift themselves out of poverty.”