South Africa Breaking Through Diplomatic Barriers : Apartheid: De Klerk’s reforms turn the tide for once-shunned regime.

The scene in President Frederik W. de Klerk’s anteroom this week was his government’s dream come true: Heads of state and foreign ministers cooled their heels for half-hour meetings with South Africa’s white leader.

“I’m just flabbergasted by the whole thing,” said Alayne Reesberg, a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman who watched the parade. “We couldn’t even process all the requests to see him. If only he’d grow a twin. We could have used one.”

For nearly a half-century, South African officials have been walked out on, stood up, snubbed, burned in effigy and even assaulted by foreigners at international forums.

What they have never been is in demand.

But almost every leader attending Namibia’s independence festivities this week wanted to meet De Klerk, who has released black political expression and scheduled “talks about talks” with the African National Congress, the government’s primary black-nationalist opposition.

In three days, De Klerk met with the presidents or foreign ministers of 19 countries, most of which have no diplomatic ties with Pretoria.

Not since the apartheid system of racial segregation became the law in South Africa, shortly after World War II, “has there been such a demand from so many world leaders to see a South African head of state,” South African Foreign Minister Roelof F. (Pik) Botha said, clearly enjoying the brief diplomatic thaw occasioned by Namibia’s independence.

De Klerk’s meetings marked an important turning point for South Africa’s white-minority-led government, which has chafed for years under diplomatic isolation.

“In the past, people didn’t even want to be seen having contact with South African politicians,” said Michael Hough, director of the Institute for Strategic Studies at the University of Pretoria. “But it’s not a disgrace to talk to them any more. That is an important psychological barrier that’s been crossed.”

None of the foreign leaders promised to establish formal links with South Africa or to end international sanctions, imposed because of the apartheid system. But there was great interest in De Klerk and his desire to launch negotiations with the voteless black majority.

“I told them that our aim was a new constitution, which will have the support of the majority of all South Africans,” De Klerk said. “While white domination should come to an end, care should be taken to avoid a situation where one form of domination is replaced by another.”

However, the recently legalized African National Congress has renewed its call on foreign powers to sever diplomatic relations with Pretoria. And ANC Deputy President Nelson R. Mandela criticized Secretary of State James A. Baker III for traveling to South Africa to see De Klerk this week.

Mandela, who met Baker and many others in Namibia, maintained that such a high-profile visit by Baker, the first by an American secretary of state in 12 years, would suggest that De Klerk has dismantled key parts of the apartheid system, which he hasn’t. Baker replied that De Klerk needs to be encouraged to continue reform.

However, most world leaders preferred the neutral ground of Namibia, which celebrated independence after 75 years of South African colonial rule, to meet De Klerk. Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze was among those who held lengthy talks there.

Some of the more diplomatically significant meetings were those with South Africa’s harshest critics. These included the chairman of the Organization of African Unity; Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak; the chairman of the Nonaligned Movement, Janez Drnovsek, of Yugoslavia, and Nigerian President Ibrahim Babangida.

The willingness to talk to De Klerk indicates that Pretoria’s image is slowly beginning to improve, analysts say. But increasing contact with foreign governments also invites pressure on South Africa to move faster on reform, they add.