S. Africa Anti-Apartheid Groups Set Conference

Leading anti-apartheid groups announced plans Wednesday to convene the largest conference of forces opposed to minority white rule in South Africa in more than 30 years.

Anglican Archbishop Desmond M. Tutu and eight other prominent anti-apartheid activists said the conference is scheduled for Oct. 7, one month after parliamentary elections that exclude South Africa’s black majority of 28 million.

The announcement came a day after Frederik W. de Klerk was sworn in as president following the abrupt resignation of Pieter W. Botha. De Klerk affirmed a commitment to racial reform but rejected black rule.

“While the racist elections will be mapping out the minority’s plans to cling onto minority rule and privilege, the conference will be an assembly of the people of our country truly democratic in its character and objectives,” said a statement by the conference organizers.

“The aim of the conference will be to map out the most effective, shortest path to the ending of oppression and exploitation and the creation of a democratic country,” it said.

The conference would be the largest by anti-apartheid forces since the Kliptown meeting of 1956, where 3,000 delegates attending a “Congress of the People” adopted the Freedom Charter, which became the manifesto of the African National Congress for the next 30 years.

Banned by Government

The government last year banned a similar attempt to bring ideologically divergent anti-apartheid groups together. This time, the organizers appealed for world pressure on Pretoria to allow the October meeting to proceed.

“We expect that the apartheid state may attempt to prevent the conference from taking place,” the statement said. “We are alerting the international community to monitor the actions of the regime in relation to this gathering of the people of our country.”

Meanwhile, Zambian President Kenneth D. Kaunda warned Wednesday that the South African government and the outlawed ANC are on a “collision course” and said urgent efforts should be made to begin talks between the two sides.

Kaunda, chairman of southern Africa’s so-called front-line states and a key player in South Africa’s efforts to improve relations with its black-ruled neighbors, said he would draw attention to the looming “blood bath” when he meets De Klerk in the Zambian town of Livingston on Aug. 28.