The Unfolding Tragedy of South Africa : De Klerk, Mandela need to regain momentum

Only a few short months ago, President Frederik W. de Klerk was carefully guiding the white minority government toward sharing power with 30 million blacks. Nelson Mandela, finally freed from prison and deputy president of the newly legalized African National Congress, was triumphantly leading the black majority toward peaceful negotiations designed to create a new multiracial, democratic order. South Africa, miraculously, seemed on the road to irreversible change.

All that is now at risk.

The sense of progress has been challenged by bloody political and ethnic rivalries--possibly exacerbated by white right-wing extremists. The immediate result has been the brutal murders of nearly 800 black South Africans in townships near Johannesburg. But also left struggling to survive has been that cautious but palpable optimism inspired by the adroit and even visionary De Klerk and Mandela--the odd couple in search of the new South Africa.

All is not lost yet, however. De Klerk is taking greater responsibility for ending the black violence between supporters of the ANC and followers of Zulu Chief Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi and his Inkatha political party for primacy during the negotiations on the divided nation’s future.

The government crackdown, Operation Iron Fist, is using tough tactics to restore law and order in the townships--though it must not, of course, become a license to kill.

The South African president has also acknowledged a “hidden hand” in the violence. Police are looking for a white gunman who allegedly participated in the random murder of pedestrians last week in Johannesburg. South African police officers must show the same fervor in cracking down on pro-apartheid whites who instigate violence as they have in moving against fighting blacks.

To address doubts about police impartiality, De Klerk is appointing special teams to investigate widespread allegations that government forces are siding with the more accommodating Buthelezi and his backers. In addition to their investigative chores, those teams are expected to monitor police behavior in the townships, an important concession to terrified black residents.

President Bush must play a role as well when he meets on Monday with De Klerk. The President must remind De Klerk that he stands on the verge of history, with the world watching, as he tries to steer his divided ship of state out of the crisis. Bush also must put to De Klerk such tough questions as, “Do you have control of your government?”

The President might also inquire about the curious timing of the decision to prosecute Winnie Mandela on charges stemming from the murder of a black teen-ager accused of informing for the police and the assault on three other youths by her bodyguards nearly two years ago.

Justice certainly must be served, but the decision cannot be expected to please her loyalists, and it is bound to upset her husband, Nelson Mandela, who is crucial to the negotiations.

Mandela has demonstrated his commitment to progress once again by not giving in to ANC members who are seeking arms to defend themselves. A return to an armed struggle would result in greater bloodshed and could reduce the possibility for peaceful negotiations.

The ANC’s top leadership, in a sharp and welcome reversal, has called for a meeting with Buthelezi and the heads of the other black homelands to get to the bottom of the violence.While a meeting of Mandela and Buthelezi cannot assure peace, anything less assures continued brutality--and a slow killing of the goal of a peaceful and united nation.

The prospect of further chaos is too horrifying to contemplate, the hope of a just and multiracial South Africa is too essential to be lost.