Anti-Apartheid Groups Gather to Form United Front : South Africa: 75 mainly black organizations are seeking common ground before talks with the white government on reform.

In a historic step toward unity, hundreds of leaders of rival anti-apartheid groups came together Friday and pledged to set aside their differences and form a united front for upcoming negotiations with President Frederik W. de Klerk’s white government.

“This is a giant step in the fight for liberation of the oppressed and exploited masses,” said Clarence Makwetu, president of the Pan-Africanist Congress, in a speech opening the conference. He added that “unity . . . is the key to liberation.”

Walter Sisulu, deputy president of the African National Congress, urged delegates to “send a message to the people of South Africa that together we are an invincible force.”

The three-day Patriotic Front conference of 75 predominantly black organizations, the largest such gathering ever in South Africa, is co-sponsored by Nelson Mandela’s ANC and the smaller, more militant PAC.

On hand are a cross-section of the South African left, from those such as the ANC and PAC who had taken up arms against Pretoria to those who eschewed guerrilla war and instead worked for change from within apartheid, the system of racial discrimination.

The most prominent black group absent from the gathering is the Zulu-based Inkatha Freedom Party, led by the ANC’s bitter foe, Chief Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi. Buthelezi announced early on that he would not take part in the conference and, as a result, Inkatha was not invited.

Both Inkatha and the government sharply criticized the conference Friday.

Inkatha said the Patriotic Front is an attempt to pit blacks against whites. And Gerrit Viljoen, the government’s chief negotiator, contended that the meeting is “nothing but an attempt by certain political parties to gang up against the government in a negative way.”

The strong criticism reflected the fears of government officials that a successful anti-apartheid front will give the ANC more power--and make it less flexible--at the bargaining table.

It also reflected the strong disagreement between the government and the political left over how to draw up a new constitution. The government wants a constitution drawn up by consensus in a round-table of all major political leaders in the country. Such a process would give minority groups, such as whites and Inkatha, a greater say in the final product.

But most of the Patriotic Front delegates support the ANC’s demand that the constitution be drawn up by a body elected in a one-person, one-vote election, a demand that the government has rejected but is willing to discuss. Such a body, or constituent assembly, would probably give the ANC, which has broad support among the black majority, the upper hand.

However, the ANC, the government and Inkatha agree on the urgent need for talks among South Africa’s major political leaders to discuss how to draw up the constitution and what type of transitional government the country would need during the interim period. ANC sources say such talks are tentatively set for late November.

The Patriotic Front is a key plank in the ANC’s strategy for negotiations. If successful, it will bring the PAC and other anti-apartheid groups to the negotiating table, where they will be on the ANC’s side.

The PAC, which like the ANC waged 30 years of guerrilla war against Pretoria, has small but significant support among blacks. A recent opinion poll of urban blacks found that 7% would definitely vote for the PAC in an election and that 24% might vote for it. That compared to 68% who said they would definitely vote for the ANC and 12% who said they might vote for it.

(By contrast, only 3% of those surveyed said they might or would definitely vote for Inkatha, whose support is centered in rural areas of Natal province, and 28% said the same of De Klerk’s ruling National Party.)

Although the ANC and PAC both see an advantage in joining hands during negotiations, deep differences over strategy and ideology divide them.

The Azanian People’s Organization (AZAPO), a PAC ally, nearly derailed the conference a few days ago when it sent a letter to the mixed-race Labor Party and the liberal white Democratic Party, which hold seats in the government’s tricameral Parliament, demanding that they resign their seats in “the apartheid system” before attending the conference.

AZAPO was summarily removed as a co-sponsor of the conference, and it also declined an invitation to attend as a participant.

The PAC has traditionally been more militant than the ANC. It has refused to even talk with the government, for example, and has strongly opposed such ANC discussions. The PAC argues that the only negotiable demand is the timing for handing power over to the black majority.

But in recent weeks the PAC has softened its stand. It still demands that De Klerk agree to an election for a constituent assembly before drawing up a constitution. However, PAC leader Makwetu said Friday that his organization is prepared to “pre-negotiate” the ways and means of holding such an election, which opens the door for contact with the government.

While the ANC says it is prepared to negotiate such matters as redistribution of land and protection for whites and other minorities, PAC leaders want a majority-rule government, and they demand that land now in white hands be “returned to the toiling and dispossessed African masses.”

But there are wide areas of agreement as well, including shared doubts about De Klerk’s sincerity on reform, especially in light of the government’s inability to halt the political violence that has claimed about 3,000 lives in the past year. The ANC sees the killing, which it believes is spawned by Inkatha with government support, as an attempt to undermine ANC support among blacks in the run-up to negotiations.

As a result, the ANC, the PAC and most other members of the Patriotic Front also strongly support an interim government in which De Klerk’s power would be diminished.

“It has now become patently obvious that the major obstacle in the path of negotiations is the continuation in office of the present government,” the ANC’s Sisulu declared Friday.