De Klerk Moves to Curb Security Forces : South Africa: The new president makes a sharp break with the policies of former President Botha.

President Frederik W. de Klerk moved to rein in his national security forces Tuesday by replacing the powerful and secretive National Security Management System with a smaller organization that will be more directly under Cabinet control.

The move marked a significant break with the era of former President Pieter W. Botha, who created the massive security apparatus, often described by critics as a “shadow government,” to wage a counterrevolutionary war that included everything from the detention of activists to building roads.

De Klerk, in a speech to the South African Police College, said the system had made “a useful contribution to stabilizing matters in specific communities.” But he added that “changed circumstances and practical experience” required the reorganization.

He said it will “confirm the Cabinet as the highest policy-making and coordinating power.”

Political analysts saw the move as an attempt to dismantle some of the near-absolute power enjoyed by “securocrats” during the Botha years. Some suggested that it foreshadows the end of the 3 1/2-year-old state of emergency.

“De Klerk is clearly not abandoning the security establishment, but he’s insisting, at the very least, on reimposing political control over it,” said Mark Phillips, a researcher at the Center for Policy Studies in Johannesburg.

The National Security Management System, run by members of the State Security Council, gained enormous power in June, 1986, when the government declared a sweeping state of emergency to quell two years of rioting that left at least 3,000 blacks dead.

A total of 350 Joint Management Centers were set up, manned by local police commanders, white administrators and moderate blacks. At first they gathered intelligence on “subversive” elements, detained activists and issued pro-government propaganda. Later, the centers undertook a program, at an estimated cost of $10 billion, to improve basic living conditions in key areas of black townships and win black support.

The local centers, whose members’ identities were closely guarded, were seen by activists as sinister arms of the government that operated ruthlessly with no accountability to Parliament.

In recent months, the system had come under increasing attack from within the government. Civilian administrators complained that their functions were being taken over by the so-called securocrats, who had neither the flexibility nor the initiative necessary to carry out De Klerk’s reform plans.

Under Botha, all State Security Council recommendations were routinely carried out. But the council began to lose its power soon after De Klerk became leader of the ruling National Party earlier this year. For example, in February, when hundreds of detainees began a hunger strike, the Cabinet for the first time overruled the State Security Council and decided to release the detainees.

De Klerk’s announcement Tuesday was seen as a tacit admission that the system had been dominated by security officials, as critics charged, and had bypassed the functions of civilian government. De Klerk said the streamlined system will replace the Joint Management Centers with Local Coordinating Centers, which will meet only when the need arises.

The liberal white Democratic Party welcomed the move, but party co-leader Zach de Beer said it does not go far enough. De Klerk, he said, “must realize that in South Africa, just as in Eastern Europe, people are looking to gain control of their government instead of being managed by civil servants responsible to others.”

The right-wing Conservative Party criticized De Klerk’s move, calling it a slap in the face for Defense Minister Magnus Malan that would “lead to even greater tension” between politicians and security officials.