S. Africa Frees 2 Ailing Black Nationalists : Pretoria Grants Unconditional Release on Humanitarian Grounds

Two aging and ailing black nationalist leaders, who have been imprisoned for more than a decade, received their unconditional freedom Saturday.

Harry Gwala, 68, a veteran member of the outlawed African National Congress who is terminally ill, and Zephania Mothopeng, 75, president of the Pan-Africanist Congress, “were released unconditionally on medical-humanitarian grounds,” prison officials said in a brief statement.

Anti-apartheid groups had appealed to President Pieter W. Botha to release both men on humanitarian grounds.

Gwala was freed from Westville Prison in the port of Durban, and Mothopeng was released from Diepkloof Prison in the Soweto township outside Johannesburg.

‘This Came Unexpectedly’

“I’m very much excited; this came unexpectedly,” Gwala, a close friend of jailed ANC leader Nelson R. Mandela, said in a telephone interview after he returned to his home in Edendale black township near the Natal provincial capital of Pietermaritzburg.

He also said he hoped his release would be followed by that of Mandela, South Africa’s best-known black prisoner who is currently recovering from tuberculosis in a Cape Town clinic.

Gwala himself is suffering from a degenerative neurological disorder with no known cure that has left his arms paralyzed. Doctors say he has at most two years to live.

An African National Congress member since 1944, when the organization was still legal, Gwala helped organize anti-apartheid protests in the 1950s and continued to do so after the organization was outlawed in 1960. He was imprisoned from 1963 to 1971 for sabotage, and in 1976 he was again jailed--this time for life--for furthering the aims of the ANC.

Gwala said he still “fully supports the goals of the ANC,” the largest black guerrilla movement in South Africa, although he did not know if he would resume his political activities due to the “tough conditions under the state of emergency.”

State-of-emergency regulations in effect since 1986 restrict reporting about unrest, security force actions, treatment of detainees, some forms of protest and a broad range of statements the government considers subversive.

Undisclosed Illness

Mothopeng, who has been receiving treatment for an undisclosed illness for several months, was a member of the ANC during the 1940s and 1950s but broke from the organization in 1959 to help establish the Pan-Africanist Congress of Azania, which also is outlawed.

He was arrested in August, 1976, and sentenced to 15 years in prison for his involvement with the group. Despite his imprisonment, Mothopeng in 1986 was elected president by the group’s exiled leadership.

Although both organizations are waging a guerrilla war against the nation’s white-led minority government, the Pan-Africanists favor black self-sufficiency in the struggle for political rights, while ANC members support a multiracial approach.

The government’s decision to release the two black leaders is the latest move apparently aimed at reducing domestic and international pressure on South Africa. In the past week, the government has:

-- Announced that Mandela, who was jailed for life in 1964 for treason, would not return to prison when he completes his recovery from tuberculosis. However, Mandela will remain in custody at a “suitable” location, the government added.

-- Endorsed a regional peace plan under which South Africa would grant independence to South-West Africa, also known as Namibia.

-- Granted clemency to the Sharpeville Six, a group of blacks sentenced to death for complicity in a 1984 mob killing. The death sentences, replaced with lengthy jail terms, had provoked international protest.

“One is thankful that it looks like the milk of human kindness is not running dry with our government,” Anglican Archbishop Desmond M. Tutu said of Saturday’s releases.