S. Africa Arrests 11 in Assassination Plot : Mandela, De Klerk Among Targets of Right-Wing Group

Police arrested 11 whites in connection with a right-wing plot to assassinate Nelson Mandela, President Frederik W. de Klerk and other figures, a newspaper reported today.

Authorities confirmed the arrests and said all were later released.

The Afrikaans-language weekly Vryeweekblad said that according to the plan, Mandela was to be shot by a sniper at Johannesburg’s Jan Smuts Airport when he returned July 18 from his six-week tour of North America, Africa and Europe. The black nationalist leader is in New York today.

Told about the plot by reporters, Mandela said he has little time for fear.

He told a brief press conference at the World Trade Center that he had not previously heard of the report, but he added, “I must inform you that I am so busy with positive work that I have little time for fears. Mr. de Klerk and I are prepared to mobilize the country on the question of peace.”

He added that as a member of the African National Congress he is part of a team. “If I am not there the organization will continue. . . . There are many highly respected leaders in my country.”

The report said the plot was exposed by Jannie Smith, a former security policeman and National Intelligence Service agent, after he infiltrated far-right groups including the Afrikaner Resistance Movement.

There was no immediate government comment on details of the report, but a spokesman for the Ministry of Law and Order confirmed that 11 men had been arrested, then released.

The spokesman said that if police believe there is a specific case to pursue they will present the information to the attorney general, who may then decide whether to prosecute.

The Afrikaner Resistance Movement planned to blow up power stations, eliminate members of Parliament and to poison the water supply to Soweto, a huge black residential area outside Johannesburg, the report said.

The plot to kill Mandela, deputy president of the African National Congress, was planned by former Nazi Capt. Heinrich Beissner, the newspaper said. It said Beissner, 77, is now a regional head of the right-wing Afrikaner Resistance Movement in South Africa.

In London, South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu said the government’s leniency toward right-wing groups created the climate for racist assassination plots.

“We’ve always said the government was not coming down sufficiently strongly on the right wing, and there have been very many incidents in the past which just seem to baffle the police,” Tutu told Sky TV.