Bush Praises De Klerk for Reforms, Vows Help

President Bush today warmly praised South African President Frederik W. de Klerk after a two-hour meeting with him and pledged U.S. assistance for his efforts to guide South Africa toward a post-apartheid democratic system.

Bush said he is confident that the reform process under way in South Africa is irreversible.

“The time has come to encourage and assist the emerging new South Africa,” Bush said.

De Klerk also said the process in South Africa is irreversible, promising to scrap the country’s white supremacist system and replace it with a new system with “a vote of equal value to all South Africans.”

“We will not turn back,” De Klerk said, his words seemingly aimed at doubters in the United States who believe he will not deliver on his pledges for a new South Africa.

Bush was intent on paying tribute to De Klerk for the leadership he has provided in beginning to dismantle white supremacist rule in South Africa. Their discussion was partly aimed at devising ways the United States can help speed the process.

No South African head of state has visited Washington since 1945. As recently as the Ronald Reagan Administration, the two countries were barely on speaking terms because of the sanctions Congress imposed on South Africa in 1986.

But the U.S. attitude toward South Africa changed dramatically with the liberalizing steps De Klerk has taken, including freeing African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela from prison and lifting bans on democratic political groups.

An Administration official who briefed reporters said De Klerk’s visit is not designed to bring about an end to U.S. sanctions. South Africa has fulfilled some, but not all, of the conditions required by law for the sanctions to be lifted.