Whites Pressed to Join Blacks in S. African Talks

President Frederik W. de Klerk opened what could be the final session of Parliament on Friday with his strongest pitch yet for right-wing whites to join talks with the black majority, promising to put their demands for a separate white state on the negotiations agenda.

“In the interests of peace,” he told his right-wing opponents, “I urge you to make use now of this open door.”

As De Klerk spoke, tens of thousands of blacks took to the streets of Cape Town, Johannesburg and other cities to show their disapproval for Parliament, from which the black majority remains excluded.

Walter Sisulu, deputy president of the African National Congress, told 20,000 people at a rally a few blocks from Parliament that De Klerk’s government is scheming to retain power for whites “behind a complicated charade of democracy.” And he dismissed Parliament as “that house up the road . . . serving the interests of the rich.”

De Klerk largely ignored his black critics, although he devoted substantial parts of a wide-ranging speech to calming white fears about the Convention for a Democratic South Africa, the sessions in which the government now is involved in power-sharing talks with the black majority.

The president reiterated his support for the sovereignty of Parliament and, in an attempt to show his respect for the institution, opened the legislative session with a display of pageantry not seen since his election in 1989, when he did away with most of the traditional ceremony surrounding Parliament. De Klerk and his Cabinet arrived for the opening in a fleet of Mercedes-Benz automobiles; they were greeted by a 21-gun salute and escorted by a military band and an honor guard equipped with automatic weapons.

In his speech, De Klerk said he remained “honor-bound” to submit all decisions by the power-sharing convention to racially separate referendums and then to the white-controlled Parliament for approval. De Klerk’s promise of a white referendum would give whites an effective veto over the decisions of the power-sharing convention, which includes representatives of the government, the African National Congress and 17 other black and white groups.

The ANC, the country’s largest black group, has sharply criticized such a referendum as a thinly disguised attempt by De Klerk and the white minority to control the convention’s final product.

Foreign Minister Roelof F. (Pik) Botha, briefing reporters on the president’s speech, said that even if Indians, mixed-race Coloreds and blacks voted yes in their referendums, a negative vote from the white minority would mean, “let’s face it, back to the drawing board.”

If whites vote against the convention’s decisions, “then we are in trouble,” Botha admitted. But he defended a white referendum, saying it was the political price De Klerk had to pay to win election and start the process of apartheid reform. “If it was not for that (promise), we could not have won the election and gotten a mandate to negotiate” with the black majority, he said. “This has nothing to do with racism or color. It is a commitment we made.”

Added Finance Minister Barend du Plessis: “Our contingency plan is to win and not to prepare for defeat.”

To do that, though, most political analysts believe that De Klerk will need the support of at least some members of the far-right Conservative Party, which represents up to a third of whites.

But conservative leader Andries Treurnicht immediately rejected De Klerk’s new invitation to power-sharing talks. He said the convention’s declared support for a unified South Africa with one central government showed that De Klerk was “miles removed” from the Conservatives’ demand for a separate state for Afrikaners, descendants of South Africa’s original Dutch, German and French settlers.

ANC President Nelson Mandela also criticized De Klerk’s promise of a white referendum. “It is ridiculous to embark on negotiations and then go and consult a particular ethnic group whose response might be negative,” Mandela told a press conference in Soweto.

But the decision by the Conservatives and other right-wing white groups to boycott the power-sharing negotiations has created deep concern among government officials, as well as the ANC.

Militant right-wingers already have begun a campaign to destabilize the country by planting bombs in multiracial schools and government buildings. Right-wing groups, however, are divided over whether to join the negotiations; De Klerk’s speech seemed to be designed to widen that split.

Militant right-wing whites say the only road to a separate white state is by force. More moderate Conservatives, though, think that negotiations with the government and the ANC offer whites the best hope for peacefully attaining their goals. De Klerk, like leaders of the ANC, has rejected right-wing demands for a separate white homeland.

But, in a last-minute addition to his speech Friday, the president announced that he has persuaded other participants in the convention to at least consider proposals for white self-determination. And he argued that the concession opened the way for right-wing groups to participate in negotiations.

Meanwhile, divisions between the ANC and its smaller left-wing rivals over how to fight the government were displayed in separate rallies and marches nationwide. While the ANC has agreed to participate in negotiations, the Pan-Africanist Congress has refused, demanding that De Klerk first relinquish his hold on power. Hundreds of heavily armed police watched the competing rallies and marches of the ANC and the PAC in Cape Town.

In his speech, De Klerk gave a general outline of proposals the government plans to offer to the power-sharing convention. The government wants the convention to draw up a plan for a transitional government, which would include blacks in decision-making posts.

That plan would then be submitted to racially separate referendums. If approved, the necessary constitutional changes would be passed by Parliament, which the government controls, and a new Parliament would be elected under the new constitution.

ANC leaders say they are willing to listen to the government proposals, but they worry that the result of De Klerk’s plan would be a long-term transitional government, which would further delay the creation of a democracy and maintain white veto power in national decision-making.