Troops Sent to S. African Trouble Spots : Unrest: De Klerk acts to halt bloodshed in Natal province. He plans to meet with Mandela.

President Frederik W. de Klerk announced Monday that he is dispatching extra police and army units to quell an upsurge of violence, but he also promised indemnity for politically motivated crimes and said he plans talks later in the week with black nationalist Nelson R. Mandela.

The president’s actions, disclosed in a speech to Parliament in Cape Town, are designed to lure the African National Congress to the negotiating table and to end escalating bloodshed in Natal province, where fighting among rival black factions has claimed 80 lives in the last week.

Saying that the ANC’s decision to suspend planned talks with the government “came as a complete surprise,” De Klerk added that he hopes the ANC will reconsider and “find it possible to join those already talking.”

The ANC, the primary anti-apartheid organization in South Africa, had suspended next week’s talks with De Klerk to protest the police killing of demonstrators in Sebokeng township. Those talks were to focus on the ANC’s preconditions for negotiations, which include the lifting of the 45-month-old state of emergency, the safe return of political exiles and the release of political prisoners.

“It is difficult to understand why an organization saying it is interested in peace refuses to come and talk about that very issue,” De Klerk said. “They wanted to discuss these issues, and we were ready to do so.”

He said the ANC’s stated support both for the armed struggle and for peaceful solutions are mutually exclusive positions “that lie at the root of the ANC’s hesitancy to fully align themselves with the negotiating process.”

The ANC maintains that the police actions in Sebokeng, where more than 10 demonstrators were killed last week, call into question the government’s own commitment to peace. It says it will watch the government’s response to the allegations and review its decision to suspend the talks within a week.

In the meantime, though, the ANC authorized Mandela, its deputy president, to meet with De Klerk on Thursday in an attempt to iron out the two sides’ differences.

That historic meeting will mark the first top-level talks between the government and the ANC in more than three decades. De Klerk and Mandela met twice, in December and February, before the black nationalist was freed from prison.

In his speech to Parliament, which excludes the black majority, De Klerk went part of the way toward meeting the ANC’s conditions for talks by promising to introduce legislation to grant indemnity for some politically motivated criminal acts.

Guidelines would be drawn up to deal with those already serving sentences in political cases, the president said. He also suggested that the indemnity might apply to whites convicted of crimes against anti-apartheid activists. But he added that “blanket indemnity is not being considered.”

De Klerk also outlined proposals for dealing with the increasing violence countrywide, which has been generated by both radical blacks and right-wing whites.

“Those who still persist with worn-out rhetoric (such as) ‘the armed struggle continues’ and those who insist on continued (white) domination must realize that we are deadly serious about building the new South Africa without brutality and without unrest,” De Klerk said.

“This necessarily means the use of the defense force over a broad front and in great numbers,” he added. “Everyone must understand that these decisions can lead to a rise in the number of people held in detention.”

De Klerk outlined plans for road and aerial patrols in black townships, where 400 people have been killed in political fighting since February.

Extra troops and police arrived Monday in embattled townships in Natal province, where more than 2,500 people have died in three years of war between supporters of Zulu Chief Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi and of the United Democratic Front, an anti-apartheid coalition aligned with the ANC.

On Monday, Mandela toured the townships around Pietermaritzburg, where South African soldiers armed with automatic rifles halted several outbreaks of fighting and hundreds of residents have fled to churches for refuge.

“We are here to console you, mourn with you and comfort you,” Mandela told 2,500 people who packed a meeting hall in Edendale township. Although Mandela did not tell his supporters to stop fighting, he said the ANC “is keen to make peace with” Buthelezi’s Inkatha movement.

THE THREE PILLARS OF THE ANC External Leadership: The 35-member National Executive Committee, which oversees the African National Congress’ political and military wings, is based in Lusaka, Zambia, as are the top officers. Leaders include Oliver Tambo, the president, now recovering from a stroke at a hospital in Sweden; Thabo Mbeki, foreign affairs chief; and Alfred Nzo, general secretary. The only major officeholder not in exile is Nelson R. Mandela, recently installed as the ANC deputy president behind Tambo, his former law partner. Interim Leadership Core: Based in Johannesburg. Its head is Walter Sisulu, 77, former ANC general secretary released from prison in October. The ILC is organizing the ANC’s move back home and dealing with problems inside the country, such as the violence in Natal province. Those released from prison with Sisulu--all former co-defendants with Mandela--are also part of the leadership core. The Grassroots: The ANC’s support inside the country comes primarily from ANC-aligned organizations, such as the United Democratic Front, an anti-apartheid coalition of 750 groups comprising 2 million members, and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU). Among leaders of these organizations who have been at Mandela’s side recently and are tapped as likely ANC leaders inside the country one day are: Cyril Ramaphosa, 37, of the National Union of Mineworkers; Murphy Morobe, assistant publicity secretary of the UDF; Patrick Lekota, publicity secretary of the UDF and Popo Molefe, UDF general secretary.