Free at Last, Mandela Enters a Larger Jail: Oppressive Apartheid Laws Still in Force : South Africa: There seems increasingly little difference between government and ANC positions. It is their visions of a new nation that differ.

Nelson Mandela has been freed, released from a small prison into the greater jail of apartheid that imprisons all South Africans, black and white.

While about 200,000 Sowetans were cheering Mandela at a Tuesday rally outside Johannesburg, Constitutional Development Minister Gerrit Viljoen was telling a Cape Town press conference that the government agreed with the African National Congress: The remains of apartheid should be removed. He also said the government agreed there must be universal suffrage in a united, democratic South Africa.

The ANC has called for a united, non-racial and democratic nation. Viljoen said there would never again be a whites-only election and that in a new constitution the National Party was unlikely to have control of government. Superficially there seems increasingly little difference between what the government is saying and what the ANC is demanding.

Ultimately both sides seek power and both want peace. It is their visions of a new South Africa that differ.

In the immediate future the government wants international sanctions lifted; the ANC is opposed to the lifting of sanctions, seeing them as a vital, nonviolent weapon that has brought the government to its current willingness to negotiate with blacks after 78 years of ignoring, suppressing and killing ANC members who appealled for dialogue.

The ANC and other anti-apartheid forces fear that if the pressure of sanctions eases, so too will the white government’s desire to end apartheid.

In the West there appears to be sentiment--conveyed by British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher--that the South African government of President Frederick W. de Klerk should be “rewarded” for releasing Mandela from his nearly 28-year incarceration and for relaxing a few repressive measures.

But De Klerk has not touched the fundamental pillars of apartheid, which remain. Nelson Mandela, as an example, is not a South African citizen in terms of apartheid law.

Fewer than 15% of the blacks have been recognized as citizens of South Africa. The rest of them have been forced to adopt the “citizenship” of the much-hated Bantustans, or homelands, which formed a cornerstone to apartheid policy by denying the right of blacks to be citizens of--or to live in--white South Africa.

Whites swallowed up 85% of the land, leaving the remaining 15% for black “foreigners” who were born and worked on white soil.

Technically Mandela is a citizen, even though he refuses to accept citizenship, of the Transkei Bantustan. White South Africa created and gave “independence” to it in 1978--an independence that none of the world recognizes, not even the Transkeians, who are currently trying to negotiate their reincorporation into South Africa.

Last week the government said it will consider making blacks full citizens of South Africa once more. But what of all the other apartheid laws? In this context, Thatcher’s idea of a reward seems less than appealing. Should white South Africans be rewarded for lifting minor elements of a policy that was morally repugnant when adopted?

While Thatcher talks of easing economic sanctions, the De Klerk government has not proposed creation of a unitary education system to replace one now divided on the basis of race and apartheid into 18 separate deparments.

Despite heavy pressure from the black community and increasing pressure from anti-apartheid elements within the white community, the Pretoria government has said that school desegregation is not negotiable.

Last year more than 200 white schools closed because there were not enough white pupils. In black schools the teacher-pupil ratio has reached a staggering 1-90. Five times more is spent on the education of each white child; white children enjoy a teacher-pupil ratio of 1-16. There is a black teacher shortage of 300,000. Among those who currently teach, more than three-quarters are underqualified and have received no formal teacher training.

In the white community there is so little interest in teaching as a profession that four teacher-training colleges were closed down last year. There are almost 2,000 vacancies in white teacher-training colleges, which refuse to admit black students.

While removal of sanctions is the reward sought by De Klerk’s government, the ANC’s immediate goal is the liberation of political activity--two of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s four freedoms: freedom of speech and freedom of association.

The government, however, says if this is permitted violence will escalate as rival factions from left and right, white and black, battle for power. Officials say there is still a need to circumscribe political activity.

The ANC and United Democratic Front argue otherwise, claiming these restraints on political mobilization make political violence more likely, arguing that people who have a communal responsibility within the framework of a political organization are less likely to resort to anti-social behavior.

Removal of political restraints would be a challenge to members of the democratic anti-apartheid movement; they would have to start behaving like political parties and not guerrilla or protest movements. As it is now, the government still holds a vast array of security legislation on its books. For example, although the ANC is unbanned, the law that banned it remains intact. Although hundreds of people who could not be quoted or move freely have had their restrictions lifted, the laws that curbed their lives remain in effect.

For negotiations to take place, a whole new climate of mutual trust must be created.

The white press has criticized the ANC’s commitment to continue the armed struggle, although it is not involving its followers in acts of violence. Nonetheless, the government also continues to expand and mobilize its armed forces. This January almost 30,000 school graduates began military training, even though both the government and ANC concede that warfare is not an option.

The government cannot afford another war on the heels of the Namibian conflict, so demoralizing in its human and financial costs. The ANC, meanwhile, has all but stopped violent acts and has acknowledged that it does not have the capacity to intensify the armed struggle.

Both sides are setting the stage for a cessation of hostilities followed by a mutually negotiated cease-fire. The first steps should begin after Mandela visits ANC headquarters in Lusaka, Zambia, this week. The ANC said Friday it would meet soon with De Klerk to help create a climate for negotiations.

White South Africa at last is recognizing it cannot hold power, or control, forever.