Prisoner Issue Troubles S. Africa Peace Talks : Apartheid: The ANC vows not to negotiate until all political offenders are freed. But it differs with the government on the definition of political prisoner.

High school student Mthetheleli Mncube sneaked out of South Africa in 1980, and, five years later, stole back into the country as a trained guerrilla of the outlawed African National Congress.

His military unit planted land mines on the northern border, killing six farmers and a farm worker before Mncube was captured. He managed to escape, though, mortally wounding his two white police captors in the process.

When Mncube was finally manacled and hauled into court, the judge found no reason for mercy. Mncube received four death sentences for murder and terrorism on May 5, 1988, and his hanging was imminent when the ANC was legalized last year.

Now the tall, even-tempered black man on Death Row, and others like him, represent the biggest obstacle to both the end of U.S. sanctions against Pretoria and the beginning of negotiations between the white-led government and the voteless black majority.

South Africa’s jails hold thousands of inmates like Mncube, doing time or facing execution for politically motivated crimes. In August, President Frederik W. de Klerk pledged to free them by the end of next month and he and the ANC agreed on broad guidelines to identify political prisoners.

But now, with more than three-fourths of the political prisoners still in jail, human rights lawyers worry that the government’s definition of who is a political prisoner will not be broad enough to include Mncube and many others.

The ANC estimates that South Africa has 3,000 political prisoners. But the government estimates it is holding only 1,200. South Africa has released 310 prisoners in the past year, but at the same time its courts have convicted and sentenced 51 more political activists.

As the April 30 deadline looms, it still is not clear exactly who will qualify as a political prisoner.

Is Mncube a political prisoner? What about Robert McBride, another ANC guerrilla who planted a bomb in a restaurant that killed three white civilians? Or the 14 people sent to Death Row for being part of a mob that killed a township councilor during political unrest?

The ANC believes they all clearly fit the definition. But so far, no prisoner who killed anyone in the pursuit of a political goal has been freed. Most of those released have been serving time for less violent acts, such as possessing weapons, furthering the aims of the ANC, or planting bombs that caused damage but no deaths.

ANC Deputy President Nelson Mandela, who has held several government-approved meetings with prisoners, has given his word that the ANC will refuse to negotiate with the government until Mncube, McBride and all the rest are free. And the ANC rank-and-file sees the prisoner issue as the most important test of the government’s sincerity about reform.

Mncube, who received ANC military training in East Germany and Angola, is frustrated by the delays but confident he will qualify.

“Whatever happened, I was acting on orders from the ANC,” he said. “I was a soldier. Anything I did was a mission of the ANC.”

Human rights groups, however, are growing increasingly concerned that the government may not have the nerve to release men, whom it once labeled “terrorists,” especially those convicted of killing white civilians.

“The battle is just beginning,” said Paula McBride, of Lawyers for Human Rights, an anti-apartheid organization helping prisoners apply for release. Her most personal concern is the fate of Robert McBride, whom she married two years ago on Death Row.

“You’ve got commanders and the chief of staff and the head of the (ANC) army talking to the government, walking around with impunity, which is great,” McBride added. “But the fact is, the people they instructed are still sitting in jail. Their cases are just not being looked at.”

Under the government-ANC agreement, De Klerk has the ultimate authority to decide who goes free. The guidelines adopted by the ANC and the government direct De Klerk to consider such factors as the motive of the offender, the context in which the crime was committed, the nature of the political objective, whether it was committed under orders from the ANC or other organizations and the gravity of the crime.

The decisions are being made behind closed doors, however. The amnesty application for McBride, which was filed five months ago, is one of many said to be on De Klerk’s desk.

“We don’t understand why they are delaying,” said Matthew Phosa, an ANC member of the joint ANC-government working group on political prisoners. “We can’t explain it to our constituents.”

When Phosa has pressed the government to move more quickly, he said, he has been told that the cases “are receiving attention.”

“We have acted in good faith, (but) they have the keys to the prisons,” he added. “They must decide when to open up.”

Government officials say the prisoner release plan is moving apace. But they acknowledge it is unlikely that all prisoners will be free by April 30. To meet that deadline, the government would have to begin releasing more than 300 prisoners a week.

The government blames the delay on slow bureaucracy and officials insist it does not indicate a lack of resolve. The government says it has received only 780 applications for prisoner amnesty, and lawyers say they have had difficulty gaining access to prison records to determine who might qualify for release.

A joint ANC-government panel was recently appointed to advise De Klerk on difficult cases, which would probably include those activists jailed for violence committed during the bloody township riots of 1984-86.

But so far, no one has been referred to that panel, according to the ANC’s Phosa.

The political prisoner issue has broader implications for the country. Their release is the only mandatory condition of the U.S. sanctions law, which has imposed the world’s strictest restrictions on trade with South Africa. The State Department believes that the remaining four conditions for lifting U.S. sanctions have been met, although some in Congress disagree.

Mncube now is one of 55 political prisoners on Death Row at Pretoria Central Prison. The South African government, which in 1988 executed more prisoners than any country in the Western world, declared a moratorium on hangings last year and Parliament rewrote the death penalty legislation, making it easier for criminals to escape the hangman.

The moratorium has been lifted and hangings are due to resume any day, although all death sentences currently are under review.

But Mncube and his Death Row colleagues aren’t hoping only to be spared from death. They are expecting to be freed.

Mncube is one of five Death Row inmates trained outside the country as members of the ANC’s military wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation). As such, he considers himself a prisoner of war.

Mncube was born in Soweto, the fifth of seven children of George Mncube, a retired painter who also was the bishop of the New Jerusalem Church of Zion, a Christian denomination.

During the township uprising of 1976, Theleli, as he was known, was a student and part-time photographer who specialized in weddings and social gatherings. He was drawn into politics when he saw police kill several of his friends and he joined the banned Congress of South African Students in 1979.

Under threat of arrest, he fled the country in 1980, hoping to join the ANC and continue his education abroad. He first went to Swaziland, then neighboring Mozambique. While Mncube was in Mozambique, South African troops crossed the border and attacked several ANC safe houses there. That raid convinced Mncube that he should join the guerrilla war.

He went for training in ANC military camps in Angola, then went to East Germany for more specialized instruction. He returned to Angola, and, along with four other men, was dispatched to the Zimbabwe-South Africa border.

The South African army regularly patrolled that frontier area and farmers were armed and organized into defense units. A land mine allegedly planted by Mncube’s unit in 1986 killed six members of two white farm families. Another land mine killed a black farm worker riding in a truck.

In a battle with army soldiers, Mncube’s unit was destroyed. Mncube was arrested, his hands were bound with shoelaces and he was placed in a police vehicle with the bodies of three of his compatriots and their weapons.

He managed to free himself and grab one of the AK-47 rifles. He killed two white policemen in his escape. He was arrested again later and tried with another young guerrilla. Mncube pleaded innocent, arguing that he was an ANC soldier engaged in a war for black liberation.

The judge, finding no mitigating circumstances, imposed a total of seven death sentences to the two men.