Is Peace Finally at Hand in South Africa? : De Klerk still must squelch the right and Mandela the left

The African National Congress has formally ended its armed struggle against the white minority government of South Africa. This breakthrough was overshadowed by the dramatic news of the Iraqi crisis, but it was a signal milestone in the history of South Africa.

Nelson Mandela, the deputy president of the ANC, announced what he called “the significant concession.” It capped 30 years of history in which the once officially banned organization had fought against apartheid with bombs and bullets--only after it had exhausted all rational appeals.

The disavowal of violence clears the way to the negotiating table, and brings both sides an important step closer to a new constitution and a multiracial democracy.

The ANC--an outlawed guerrilla group until February--took the principled nonviolent position only after lengthy negotiations with South African President Frederik W. de Klerk.

Meanwhile, the government created a timetable for a staggered release of political prisoners and amnesty for exiles who wish to return home, a prerequisite to negotiations for the ANC. If all goes well, the first prisoners will be freed next month, and the entire process will be completed by the end of April. Both steps remove hurdles to the final dismantling of apartheid, and have already attracted worldwide applause.

President Bush and other international leaders had urged the ANC to renounce violence. They had also called on the South African government to address the legal inequities that handicap 27 million black men, women and children in every social category, including housing, employment, education and health care from cradle to grave. Those harsh inequities prompted the ANC campaign for full equality and universal suffrage.

To achieve those goals, the ANC subscribed to nonviolent strategies, such as peaceful protests, from the organization’s creation in 1912 throughout much of its history. The ANC took up arms in 1961 only after the white government killed 67 unarmed black South Africans during a nonviolent protest known as the Sharpeville Massacre. That violence begat violence and led the ANC to wage a deadly campaign that claimed hundreds of lives, injured thousands and caused millions of dollars in property damage.

Although that violence subsided after De Klerk freed Mandela and unbanned the ANC six months ago, the congress refused to renounce its military strategies until this week.

Now that the ANC has embraced nonviolence, can Mandela persuade all of his followers within his fractious organization to put aside their divergent opinions and put down their arms? Will the ANC’s new policy prove persuasive with more militant black South Africans outside of the ANC umbrella? And, will the renunciation reduce the violence in the Natal province, where followers of Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi, the government-backed Zulu chief, do battle with supporters of the ANC and other black factions?

That fighting has claimed the lives of more than 3,000 black South Africans during the past three years. It has also motivated the government to retain the controversial state of emergency, which usurps all basic rights, in that troubled province. To quell that violence, the government should end the state of emergency and investigate all charges of police brutality in Natal and elsewhere. To encourage peace, Mandela must find common ground with Buthelezi.

The ANC’s disavowal of violence is encouraging, but peace will not be at hand in the bitterly divided nation until De Klerk can successfully address the stepped-up militancy of white right-wingers and Mandela can calm blacks on the left of the spectrum. Only then can South Africa progress toward a united and less bloody future.