Briefing Paper : In S. Africa, It’s Time to Carve Out a Future : The News:

The pageantry is over, and the hard work of creating a South Africa free from racial discrimination begins in earnest this week when five working committees of black and white leaders meet privately in the first round of constitutional negotiations.

“The show is on the road,” says Zach de Beer, chairman of the management committee for the negotiating forum, the Convention for a Democratic South Africa (CODESA).

At the same time, an old show is being revived for what may be the last time when President Frederik W. de Klerk opens the 1992 session of South Africa’s Parliament on Friday in Cape Town. It was at the opening of Parliament two years ago that De Klerk stunned the world by announcing sweeping reforms and, a week later, by releasing Nelson Mandela from jail.

This year, the Parliament, which has separate houses for whites, Indians and mixed-race Coloreds--but not blacks--may be called upon to enact even more fundamental changes in South African society, either by giving blacks power for the first time in a transitional government or voting itself out of existence.

To a large degree, Parliament will be guided by the decisions of CODESA, the negotiating forum of white, black, Indian and Colored political organizations now entrusted with charting the course of reform.

The Background:

The long-awaited negotiation process was launched formally last month with two days of speeches and promises televised live to the country’s 37 million residents--28 million of whom still cannot vote because they are black.

Seventeen of the 19 participating political groups, including the white-controlled government and the African National Congress, the voice of most blacks in South Africa, already have agreed to be bound by CODESA’s decisions.

By signing that accord, the government, in effect, agreed to give up its 42-year-old stranglehold on power to a government elected by all of South Africa’s people. But the ANC also made concessions, agreeing to negotiate the future with a white government that ANC guerrillas had spent three decades trying to unseat by force.

The Players:

The two most important groups in CODESA are the government, led by De Klerk, and the ANC, led by Mandela, its president.

The ANC’s only true ally at the table is the South African Communist Party, whose members also hold many important positions in the ANC leadership (although Mandela himself is not a Communist).

The government appears, at first glance, to have more friends around the table. De Klerk’s ruling National Party has a separate delegation, which is made up entirely of key architects of De Klerk’s apartheid reform program.

All the remaining 17 organizations have been friendlier with the government than the ANC over the years. They include leaders of the self-governing and nominally independent black homelands, created and largely funded by the South African government. Also at the table are leaders of the Indian and Colored houses in Parliament as well as the liberal Democratic Party, from the white chamber of Parliament.

Although outnumbered at the table, the ANC is not concerned. Decisions of CODESA will be made by the principal of “sufficient consensus.” For all practical purposes, that means that De Klerk and Mandela--far and away the most powerful politicians in South Africa--must agree.

The Missing Players:

The parties absent from the table are nearly as important as those present.

De Klerk’s right-wing opponents, as well as Mandela’s left-wing opponents, have thus far refused invitations to CODESA, and both have vowed to derail the negotiations--with violence if necessary.

On the right, the Conservative Party and its more militant allies say they will never live in a black-ruled country. And they are refusing to join CODESA unless the negotiators first agree to their demand for a separate white state.

Right-wing radicals, taking a page from the book written by the ANC’s guerrillas, have backed up their demands with a series of bomb attacks on government institutions. A favorite target has been white schools that have chosen to open their doors to all races.

The right-wing poses the most serious threat to negotiations because of its strong support among whites. About a third of all whites support the Conservative Party, for example, and even many supporters of De Klerk’s National Party are concerned about the rapid pace of reform and the prospect of life under an ANC-controlled government.

De Klerk has promised to seek approval for any new constitutional proposal in a white referendum, and it is far from certain that the president would prevail in such an election.

At the other end of the political spectrum, left-wing black radicals believe that De Klerk is untrustworthy and that the ANC has sold out the cause of black liberation by agreeing to negotiate with the government.

Opinion polls show the ANC as the organization with strongest support among blacks. But its smaller opponents, including the Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC) and the Azanian People’s Organization (AZAPO), are creating uncertainty in the townships. And they still have the power to make any decisions by CODESA difficult to implement.

The PAC and AZAPO have shown their muscle in recent weeks with the assassination of five policemen in Johannesburg-area townships and highly publicized threats to violently disrupt the current South African tour of singer Paul Simon. However, political analysts believe the disruptive force of left-wing opposition groups may be muted as the country moves closer to an agreement that will grant blacks the vote.

Still up in the air is the status of Zulu King Goodwill Zwelithini. Inkatha Freedom Party leader Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi, a member of the royal Zulu family, has refused to take his seat with the Inkatha delegation at CODESA until Zwelithini is allowed a full delegation to the talks.

CODESA members are concerned that if they invite the Zulu king, they also will have to invite other traditional black leaders, making the negotiation process unwieldy. The matter has been referred to a CODESA committee for study, and in any event, it is not expected that Buthelezi’s absence would cripple the conference.

The Issues:

CODESA must decide three important and contentious matters:

* How a new constitution will be written and who will write it.

* What should be the form of a transitional government.

* The future of the four black homelands that have operated independently, though with substantial support from Pretoria, for more than a decade.

The ANC and the government are at loggerheads over the first two.

Mandela wants a short-term transitional government, with a life span of no longer than 18 months, that will give black leaders a say in running the national police force and deciding economic policy.

While the interim government is in power, the ANC wants a one-person, one-vote countrywide election to select a constituent assembly, which would then draw up the new constitution.

De Klerk strongly opposes a constituent assembly election, arguing that it would force political parties to adopt hard positions and leave little room for the give-and-take necessary for constitutional negotiations. The government, and whites generally, also are worried that such an election would give the ANC control over the final product.

Under De Klerk’s counterproposal, CODESA would negotiate amendments to the present constitution to immediately include the black majority in key decisions at the executive and legislative levels of government. De Klerk sees that transitional government as having a longer term, perhaps 10 years, during which it will draw up a new constitution.

Both the government and the ANC believe that the nominally independent black homelands must eventually become part of a unified South Africa. And leaders of three of the homelands say they are willing to hold referendums on the issue among their voters.

But the fourth homeland leader, Lucas Mangope of the Bophuthatswana, who has survived one attempted coup d’etat thanks to Pretoria’s military support, has thus far refused to give up independence. For any agreement to succeed, it will need his support.

The Next Phase

Difficult as the early stages of CODESA have been, the real challenge for the ANC, the government and other participants lies ahead. The black and white leaders have until the next full meeting of CODESA in mid-March to make some progress on an array of contentious issues.

And for this complex and dangerous political chess game to succeed, CODESA will have to convince both right- and left-wing radicals that they have more to gain from talk than violence.