S. Africa Leaders Sign Accord to End Bloodshed

After a week of renewed township bloodshed, President Frederik W. de Klerk, Nelson Mandela and Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi signed a peace treaty Saturday, promising to work together to end the violence that has claimed 3,000 black lives in the past year.

The National Peace Accord, co-signed by 23 South African leaders, marked the first time that the country’s top political figures had met and agreed on any issue. And it was seen by many here as a good omen for the coming constitutional negotiations.

But, with the ink on the pact barely dry, Mandela and De Klerk exchanged heated words over what the African National Congress leader said was the government’s “double standard” in allowing 2,000 spear-carrying Zulus from Buthelezi’s Inkatha Freedom Party to demonstrate for six hours outside the downtown hotel where the peace convention was in progress.

And the difficulties facing the peace agreement and future negotiations were further underscored by police reports of 16 more deaths in Johannesburg-area townships. Among the victims was an Inkatha member who was hacked to death as he returned from the hotel demonstration. That brought the death toll from a week of factional fighting and random attacks on black commuters to nearly 200.

The disagreement between De Klerk and Mandela surfaced at a news conference after the signing ceremony when the president was asked whether the armed Zulus outside the hotel had police permission for their demonstration.

De Klerk said the group had come to greet the Zulu king, a participant in the talks, and “at no stage did they pose a threat to anyone.”

But Mandela rejected De Klerk’s explanation, saying that the government was continuing to exacerbate the black factional fighting by favoring Inkatha, which received covert aid from the government last year.

“If the people had been members of the ANC, the police would have used force” to disperse them, Mandela said. “And if they had refused, the police would have used arms. That is what is happening almost daily.”

As Buthelezi rose from his chair to respond, De Klerk stopped him and the president returned to the microphone, saying that the government “insists that the security forces must be impartial.”

Then Buthelezi, taking his turn, said he didn’t understand what all the fuss was about. “Wherever the king is, the people will come,” he said, adding that the spears were not weapons but part of the Zulu cultural dress.

Most participants in the one-day convention agreed that the pact is imperfect and unlikely to immediately quell the violence.

Mandela and Buthelezi have issued strong appeals to stop the fighting, but they acknowledge that they cannot control all their supporters. And the recent upsurge in violence appears to have been sparked by unknown assailants representing neither the ANC nor Inkatha.

“We are under no illusions that this accord is a magic one. Our signatures alone cannot light the path to peace,” Mandela told several hundred delegates to the convention, which was broadcast live on state-run television.

But, Mandela added, “we dedicate ourselves to maintaining the spark of hope we have lit today . . . and to ending the specter of terror in the lives of our people. We cannot allow the conflicts of the old South Africa to extinguish our vision of a united South Africa.”

Buthelezi expressed reservations about the effect of the agreement but said he has committed Inkatha to upholding the accord.

De Klerk, in signing the 33-page pact, agreed that it would face difficulties, but he said those would be resolved when formal constitutional negotiations begin, perhaps by the end of the year.

“The followers must see their leaders talking to each other,” De Klerk said.

The peace pact, the most important step in the negotiation process thus far, outlines a code of conduct for political organizations and the police and sets up guidelines for socioeconomic development in the townships.

The parties also agreed on a list of “fundamental rights,” including the freedoms of speech, association and assembly, and some analysts see that as laying the foundation for future constitutional talks.

The accord will also set up a national peace committee as well as local and regional “dispute resolution committees.” Those panels, made up of representatives from the ANC, Inkatha, the government, church groups, labor unions and other organizations, will have broad powers to investigate political violence.

A citizens’ police board also will be created to study police training and operations and make recommendations for change to the government’s minister of law and order.

Under the accord, the leaders agreed that “no weapons or firearms may be possessed . . . by members of the general public attending any political gathering, procession or meeting.” But no firm agreement was reached on whether such things as Zulu spears would be considered weapons.

Inkatha says that only a small number of township deaths have been caused by spears. But the ANC says that large groups of Zulus with spears in the townships frighten residents and often provoke fights.

Most of the country’s major political parties, unions and homeland leaders signed the treaty. Two radical anti-apartheid groups, the Pan-Africanist Congress and the Azanian People’s Organization, attended the convention and committed themselves to peace. But they declined to sign any agreement with De Klerk, who they believe represents an illegitimate government.

Leaders of right-wing extremist groups, including the powerful Conservative Party, were absent from the proceedings. The Conservatives have refused to negotiate with the government or the ANC until their demand for a separate white state is granted.

De Klerk predicted that the refusal of right-wing leaders to participate in the peace talks would cost them support among whites.

“The right wing has many people who are good, God-fearing people,” De Klerk said. “They don’t like violence, and they are seeing that the African National Congress and the Inkatha Freedom Party are as important in South Africa as the National Party and the Conservative Party.”

Fighting between supporters of the ANC and Inkatha spread from Inkatha’s home base in Natal, where about 5,000 people have died in the past four years, to Johannesburg-area townships last year.

The violence had waned in recent months, but it resumed last week when three black men opened fire on Inkatha supporters walking to a rally in Tokhoza township, killing 18 people. Neither Inkatha nor the police blamed the ANC for the attack, which the ANC strongly condemned, and the authorities say the gunmen apparently came from outside the township.