Bush Expected to See De Klerk, Mandela in June

South African President Frederik W. de Klerk and anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela are expected to visit Washington and meet with President Bush in late June, Administration officials said Monday.

Final dates and details are still being negotiated between the White House, representatives of the South African government and Mandela’s African National Congress. But the separate visits are expected to be publicly announced soon, perhaps this week, sources said.

Earlier this year, when Mandela was released from more than 27 years in prison in South Africa, Bush invited both men to Washington. Since then, aides have been trying to negotiate the many sensitive aspects of a visit and to fit both Mandela and De Klerk into an increasingly hectic White House schedule that includes a summit meeting with Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev starting May 30, a likely Atlantic Alliance summit in the middle of June and the annual economic summit of Western nations and Japan just after the July 4 holiday.

The Administration also has been trying to work out a way to offer some small “reward” to De Klerk for his willingness to release Mandela and open negotiations with the ANC that would not draw Mandela’s public opposition and arouse loud protests from anti-apartheid forces in the United States.

Bush repeatedly has said he has no plans to lift economic sanctions against South Africa until De Klerk’s government fulfills several conditions laid out in the 1987 law that imposed sanctions. Those conditions include lifting of the state of emergency that the South African government imposed 4 1/2 years ago and repealing several statutes that form the cornerstone of apartheid.

But the Administration has been looking for some loosening of restrictions that officials feel would aid De Klerk with the opposition he now faces from conservative whites within South Africa.

Mandela, who was released from prison in February, is likely to stay in the United States for several days and make a number of speeches while here, according to Zeph Makgetla of the ANC’s Washington office.

“He’s been invited to every part of the United States” and wants an opportunity to thank American supporters, Makgetla said.