To South African Blacks, Talk of New Political Era Still Means Rule by Whites

Has an agenda for change in South Africa already been drawn up by outsiders for soon-to-be President F.W. de Klerk? It may sound farfetched, but it is a question occupying the minds of many black political analysts.

De Klerk’s mandate, they argue, will be to implement a new plan to apply a further 5 to 10 years for white minority rule.

Authors of this grand plan are not the National Party hierarchy or the “securocrats” (as the elite group of State Security Council leaders in South Africa are dubbed).

Black political analysts believe British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and South African Foreign Minister Roelof F. (Pik) Botha are the main authors. Tangible “progress” in race relations in South Africa is important to Thatcher because she faces pressure at home from many who want Great Britain to ban trade with South Africa.

This behind-the-scenes initiative apparently would call for the release of Nelson Mandela and other jailed African National Congress leaders, the eventual lift of the ban on the ANC and the opening of talks with the organization, although South Africa would take care to distance itself from the ANC’s armed wing based in front-line states such as Zambia. The plan also would allow for the scrapping of important apartheid laws like the Group Areas Act and the Population Registration Act. The Group Areas Act designates separate residential, commercial and industrial areas. Population registration classifies people according to their race. These two acts form the cornerstone of apartheid.

In exchange for dismantling apartheid, the nationalist regime would find itself welcome in the international market. The new acceptance would mean an end to South Africa’s international isolation, the relaxation of sanctions, new foreign investments and the opening of export markets.

To make all this happen, a new leader with a different style--flexible and conciliatory yet decisive--is needed. That man is De Klerk, the new leader of the National Party.

The contrast between De Klerk and the current state president, P.W. Botha is striking. Botha’s extremely autocratic brand of leadership, his bully-bully methods and his disregard for the National Party’s parliamentary caucus had cost him many friends. Sometimes he even bypassed the Cabinet when making decisions.

P.W. Botha had militarized most structures of government and shifted real decision-making firmly within the elitist State Security Council. Whether De Klerk will be able to break from any of this is difficult to imagine. But he will assume power with the support of the parliamentary caucus, and it is there that he will most likely seek support for important changes.

De Klerk is generally described as a conservative and cautious. A conciliator rather than a hard-liner, he is someone who neither has the personality nor stature of P.W. Botha. De Klerk is not the type to bludgeon officials into submission, or to get rid of anyone who dares step out of line.

But the De Klerk government is certainly interested in taking actions that would speed economic recovery. Finance Minister Barend du Plessis recently told Parliament that the government was committed to negotiating a new constitution that would improve South Africa’s international standing immeasurably. The first steps under De Klerk’s leadership would take place soon, Du Plessis said. It is for economic reasons, like escalating gasoline costs and rent inflation, that black analysts feel that De Klerk will, in the final analysis, be compelled to adopt a new strategy of change--or plunge the country into an even greater crisis.

During a recent trip to southern Africa, Thatcher singled out the Group Areas Act and Population Registration Acts for repeal and expressed optimism about the release of Mandela. She also went out of her way to stress support for one person, one vote. But while the National Party might eventually acquiesce on some reforms to appease the West, it would only do so to buy time. It will not agree to voting reform, however, because the lack of the one person-one vote right for blacks is the very basis of the party’s power.

So while all of this talk of compromise may sound promising to many Western analysts, to most black South Africans the De Klerk government will simply mean a longer lease on life for white minority rule.