South African Dialogue

Whatever the unknown elements of the agenda may have been, the meeting between South Africa President Pieter W. Botha and Nelson Mandela, the imprisoned head of the African National Congress, was of historic consequence. It recognized the reality of the black majority, the need for negotiations, the inevitability of change.

For Botha, 73, two months from retirement and already replaced as leader of the ruling National Party, the meeting culminated a cautious relaxation of apartheid that he has implemented. For Mandela, almost 71, perhaps close to release from prison, it was almost certainly the beginning of formal consultations in which the ANC will play a major role.

Both Botha and Mandela emphasized the importance of peaceful change in their 45-minute meeting. That is consistent with what the government in Pretoria has been saying recently about the need for change and what the ANC has been saying about the need to restrict the use of violence to avoid further acts of terrorism against civilian populations. There is, of course, no guarantee that peaceful change is possible at this late date, for neither Botha nor Mandela can control what whites and blacks will do, and neither can promise an equitable agreement on the future of the nation. But there is a hope that was not there before the two men met.

If constructive negotiations do, in fact, result, they will coincide with moves elsewhere in Africa to resolve a variety of disputes with talk, rather than arms. There are new proposals for negotiations to end the rebellion in the southern Sudan and the war between Eritrean liberation forces and Ethiopia. South Africa has stopped sending arms to the UNITA guerrillas fighting the government of Angola as part of a broader peace agreement to bring independence to Namibia and end the Cuban intervention in Angola itself. Only the United States is continuing to supply lethal equipment to the Angola rebels. And in Mozambique, there are signs of progress in ending the murderous scorched-earth warfare of the RENAMO rebels.

Most whites in South Africa apparently cling to the hope that they will be able to contrive a formula for the future of their country that will guarantee continued control by the white minority. However, the new Democratic Party, claiming support of 24% of the white voters, has put forward a proposal for a nonracial political system, with guarantees for minorities, that would emerge through a lengthy transition. And the new leader of the National Party, F.W. De Klerk, in line to succeed Botha as president after the Sept. 6, is expected to accelerate efforts to eliminate apartheid and extend the vote to the black majority.

The clandestine meeting between Mandela and Botha is no substitute for the release of Mandela from prison, for amnesty, for recognition of the ANC, for accepting the open negotiations. As Mandela explained in a press statement Wednesday, a negotiated settlement is what the ANC has sought for 28 years. Until this latest meeting, however, the government has not seemed to understand that the violence it does through repression and denial of rights is as lethal to the cause of peace as bombs in crowded streets. Now, perhaps, the dialogue can begin.