De Klerk Warns Mandela on ANC Moves

President Frederik W. de Klerk warned Nelson Mandela on Wednesday that the South African peace process has been “seriously jeopardized” by the activities of some African National Congress leaders. But he said the government still will participate in a second round of talks with the ANC next Monday.

The three-hour discussion between De Klerk and Mandela in Pretoria, which the South African president said was conducted “as always . . . in a constructive spirit,” marked the second time since March that the two men had personally managed to avert derailment of talks between the ANC and the white minority-led government.

De Klerk said he “stressed the imminent breach of trust . . . which has occurred” as a result of the police arrest of several dozen ANC members and the discovery of a three-year-old ANC contingency plan to stage an armed insurrection.

De Klerk said the statements and actions of some ANC and South African Communist Party members appeared to violate the spirit of the agreement, known as the Groote Schuur Minute, reached between the ANC and the white minority-led government May 4.

“These discussions can only continue fruitfully if trust is established that all who participate are in earnest to promote, by word and deed,” peaceful solutions to South Africa’s problems as outlined in the May accord, De Klerk said.

Mandela said he attempted to reassure De Klerk that the ANC, its Communist Party ally and the ANC’s military wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation), are “totally committed” to the peace process.

“I also made an undertaking that I, personally, together with the (ANC) national executive committee, will do whatever we can to ensure that steps are taken to guarantee strict adherence to the Groote Schuur Minute,” Mandela said in a statement.

Both Mandela and De Klerk said the government’s concern about the ANC plan, and the alleged involvement of senior figures in the ANC and the Communist Party, will be discussed when the two parties meet Monday. The ANC has confirmed the existence of the 1987 plan but denied that it was being actively implemented.

The talks Monday, between delegations led by De Klerk and ANC Deputy President Mandela, are expected to address the remaining ANC obstacles to formal negotiations for a new constitution.

Those include the ANC’s insistence that political prisoners be freed, political exiles be allowed to return to South Africa and repressive security laws be removed. For its part, the government is seeking the ANC’s agreement to suspend its 30-year armed struggle against Pretoria.

The ANC said last week that De Klerk had demanded that Joe Slovo, the general secretary of the Communist Party and senior ANC figure, be removed from the ANC’s five-man delegation.

But Mandela said Wednesday that he had misunderstood the president, who had not asked that Slovo be removed.