IOC Waiting to See Progress in South Africa : Apartheid: Committee approves of actions taken by De Klerk but requires more evidence of change in nation’s racial policy.

Despite South African President Frederik W. de Klerk’s pledge last week to sweep away the last legal vestiges of apartheid, the international sports community is still wary of announcing the return of the banned nation to the world’s athletic stage.

“I don’t think the door is open at this point,” Richard Pound, an International Olympic Committee vice president, said Monday from his office in Montreal. “It’s too early to tell.We want to see irreversible change.”

De Klerk announced Friday that the last remaining laws of apartheid--the Population Registration Act, the Group Areas Act and the 1913 and 1936 Land acts--would be abolished during this year’s parliamentary session.

That, combined with the apartheid laws already repealed, would eliminate the nation’s official policy of racial separation.

South Africa has been expelled from the IOC and the world sporting community since 1970 because of apartheid. The IOC has always maintained that South Africa will be considered for reinstatement once apartheid has been abolished.

Even with this goal apparently on the horizon, sports officials are still wary.

“The latest decisions go in the direction wanted by the IOC,” Michele Verdier, IOC spokeswoman, told the Associated Press.

“The final decision will be taken by our African partners,” she said.

The IOC has long maintained that the future of South African sports lies with the rest ofAfrica, that the opinion of African sports leaders will be the crucial test for South Africa’s readmittance.

“Everyone in sport is delighted to see this step,” Pound said. “But it’s almost too early to know. We will certainly be strongly influenced by whatever the Africans will say.”

Last week’s announcement by De Klerk was welcomed by South African sports officials.

“We have been hoping for this for many years,” Doep du Plessis, director of the South African National Olympic Committee, said Monday from his office in Johannesburg. “This will have a very positive effect for us. It will remove the obstacles from the negotiating table. We are optimists. We believe that the stumbling blocks have been removed, the laws will be scrapped. What else is there?”

The IOC Apartheid Commission will visit South Africa next month, the first time an Olympic delegation has been in the country since 1967. The group will measure progress in removing racial barriers in sport and assess the unity in South Africa’s national governing bodies.

The commission will report its findings to the IOC Executive Board in April, with a recommendation to be considered by the full IOC in Birmingham, England, in June.

That could lead to South Africa’s readmittance to theIOC.

Du Plessis of the South African Olympic Committee would not put a timetable on readmittance, but said 1992 is a possibility.

“I wouldn’t say it’s out of the question,” he said. “I believe it can happen.”