Soviets Urging ANC to Seek S. Africa Political Accord

The African National Congress, which for more than 25 years has waged a low- level campaign of guerrilla attacks to press for an end to apartheid in South Africa, is coming under increasing pressure from an unexpected quarter, the Soviet Union, to reach a political settlement.

The Soviet Union not only favors negotiations to resolve the South African conflict but is pushing the ANC to show greater flexibility to get such talks under way soon, according to informe1679835470specialists on Africa here and in Moscow.

“We are probably getting more pressure from Moscow to agree to negotiations than we do even from London or Washington today,” a senior ANC official commented. “And they are very critical of us when we say the conditions are not yet ripe--they say we should do more ourselves to improve prospects for talks and to make compromise possible.”

Early last month, ANC President Oliver R. Tambo restated his organization’s willingness to end its armed campaign and accept a negotiated settlement, but he insisted that Pretoria’s white-led minority government must first legalize the ANC, free all political prisoner1931501934to “create a climate conducive to negotiations.”

“The problem is not with us,” Tambo said. “Our historic task is to destroy apartheid. If we can do that through negotiations, we are ready. But the regime is not ready to make any substantive moves for a negotiated settlement.”

Tambo’s statement, marking the group’s 76th anniversary, disappointed many East European diplomats and specialists on African affairs who in recent months have been pressing the ANC to pursue a political settlement far more actively.

“The ANC can talk all it wants about what the regime should do to promote negotiations and how unwilling it is at present,” an East European ambassador remarked here, “but the ANC’s focus must be what it can do itself to force those negotiations and to make such a settlement much more attractive to whites. . . . To our minds, that is the way forward.”

Soviet Suggestions

Soviet specialists on Africa have offered several suggestions during the last year on steps that the ANC might take to draw whites into negotiations, sometimes causing considerable controversy within the ANC.

Among these ideas is the suggestion that the ANC commit itself to a strong bill of rights that would ease white fears, although perhaps weaken the system of majority rule that ANC is fighting for, and look for other ways to provide “comprehensive guarantees for the white population.”

The Soviet experts have also suggested that the ANC put off the whole question of socialism until majority rule is well established in South Africa and that it forget its long-cherished ideas about a state takeover of the country’s giant mining houses and industrial conglomerates.

One leading Soviet academic, Gleb Starushenko, deputy director of the Africa Institute in Moscow, went as far as to suggest a federal system made up of “autonomous components” and a bicameral parliament that would give the white minority an effective veto within a majority-rule government.

‘Heavy Talks’

“We have had some very heavy talks with our Soviet comrades in the past year,” another senior ANC official said. “While we appreciate their advice, we have to tell them that negotiations do not depend on us alone. . . .

“But they also do not understand the situation at home (in South Africa) very well, that our people are fighting for a new political system, a just economic system, a new society. We can’t go back to our people, particularly the youth, and say, ‘Please accept this quarter loaf--we’ll have to get the rest later.’ We get very strong negative reactions whenever there is a hint of compromise on the fundamental issues.”

Although such differences are not likely to diminish the political, financial and military support that the ANC receives from the Soviet Union and socialist countries, they have aroused fears within the ANC that Moscow, for its own reasons, might join with other major powers in pushing the organization into negotiations before it is prepared.

A Major Blunder

In the ANC’s view, “premature” talks would be a major blunder, producing a settlement that falls significantly short of its goal of ending apartheid and establishing a democratic political system no longer based on race but on the principle of one-person, one-vote.

The Soviet assessment, however, is that the ANC will probably not be substantially stronger during the next five to seven years and that any increase in its armed campaign will be countered by even heavier government blows. It is the Soviet view that the ANC’s best course now is to draw whites into negotiations by moderating its stance, deferring the “socialist revolution” and compromising significantly to try to end apartheid sooner.

“New ideas, a fresh approach and collective efforts are needed,” Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev said last year, making the shift in the Kremlin’s policy on South Africa official. “The collapse of apartheid is inescapable. But we are not supporters of ‘the worse, the better’ thesis.”

Prospects Reappraised

Current Soviet thinking, as outlined by officials, diplomats and academic specialists here, in Moscow and at conferences, stems largely from its own reappraisal of “revolutionary prospects” in South Africa. That assessment is notably less optimistic than those of the ANC and the South African Communist Party, which do not think they can end apartheid in three or four years but do believe that a majority government will be established within a decade.

“Ten years in my opinion is a dream,” a Soviet official remarked privately during an ANC-sponsored conference in December in Arusha, Tanzania. “Fifteen years is more likely, maybe even 20, particularly with the ANC’s current strategy. . . . That is why we so strongly urge flexibility to get negotiations and then compromises to bring about a political settlement. Remember, the lives that will be lost in a continuing and expanded conflict will be mostly black lives.”

Soviet analysts said they do not see the build-up of “volcanic material,” envisioned by Joe Slovo, general secretary of the South African Communist Party and a top ANC official, as bringing a revolution to the country.

According to these Soviet analysts, who asked not to be quoted by name, the ANC should expect to be part of a coalition government in the future and should not seek to dominate it if that would deepen political divisions. Efforts should be made not to alienate such powerful groups as Inkatha, the Zulu political movement led by Chief Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi, to avoid a civil war such as those now tearing apart Angola and Mozambique.

Slow Implementation

The country’s present capitalist system should be modified only with great care, Soviet officials believe, even though that means the continuation of “monopoly capital” for many years. The goals outlined in the Freedom Charter, which was drafted in 1955 and remains the ANC’s manifesto, should be implemented slowly so that South Africa does not repeat the mistakes of other countries.

ANC officials reply that they are fully aware of all these problems and are dealing with most of them, including ways to guarantee human rights, different constitutional systems and the operation of a mixed economy in post-apartheid South Africa.

Contrasting Position

The new Soviet position does contrast sharply with its whole-hearted support of “the revolt of the masses,” “the seizure of state power” and “the socialist revolution” that it advocated for South Africa until mid-1986, as well as with the armed campaign that it helped the ANC and South African Communist Party to launch in 1961.

But it reflects broader trends in Soviet foreign policy under Gorbachev, diplomatic analysts and ANC officials both noted, comparing the shift on South Africa to more fundamental Kremlin policy changes on Afghanistan and Cambodia. Diplomats also see a Soviet desire to avoid a confrontation with the United States and other Western countries over South Africa without, however, angering any Third World friends.

A third factor, noted by Western diplomats here and in Moscow and acknowledged by some Soviet sources as well, is the difficulty that Angola, Mozambique and other African countries have had in establishing socialist systems and in achieving political stability after their revolutions.

“A country like South Africa with so many ethnic groups is bound to have nationality problems, and the ANC deludes itself in thinking that one-man, one-vote is the solution to all those problems,” one Soviet academic remarked at Arusha, saying that he was expressing a “personal, not official” viewpoint.

“The ANC should also be very realistic about the questions of moving from capitalism to socialism, of nationalization and, in general, of economic development,” he said. “After 70 years, we are still trying to define what socialism is, and so they should not be too hasty on this matter. . . .

“If a post-apartheid government, for example, took over the big mining companies, as the ANC proposes, who would manage them? Would these people have enough experience? But, if this is just something for far in the future, why insist on it now when it only alarms businessmen and other whites who might join a united front against apartheid?”

Invitations to Moscow

This is a pitch that the Soviet Union is making directly to white South Africans with increasing frequency, inviting academics, writers, journalists and others to Moscow in an effort to counter Pretoria’s charges that it is behind a “total onslaught” against South Africa’s white-led government and thus to ease the way for negotiations.

Andre Brink, a liberal Afrikaner novelist who visited Moscow for 10 days last September, found, for example, “an amazingly open approach to the world in general and southern Africa in particular. . . . It seems to me,” he added, “that it would be to our disadvantage not to weigh very carefully what they had to say.”

But Philip R. Nel, director of the University of Stellenbosch’s Institute of Soviet Studies, warned after a trip to Moscow that “the eventual Soviet goal has not changed at all” and Moscow seemed intent on duping and dividing whites “to eventually, with less bloodshed, bring the ANC to power.”