S. Africa Seen ‘on Brink of Disaster’ : Crisis: President De Klerk interrupts European visit. He faces a rising tide of black anger caused by township violence.

President Frederik W. de Klerk cut short a visit to Expo 92 in Spain on Monday to return home to salvage suspended black-white talks and face a political crisis that Archbishop Desmond Tutu says has put the country “on the brink of disaster.”

As the situation deteriorated Monday, the police announced the arrest of five black men as suspects in the massacre last week of 39 men, women and children in Boipatong, a stronghold of the African National Congress. The suspects were residents of a migrant workers’ hostel, controlled by the ANC rival Inkatha Freedom Party.

But the arrests, and police promises to continue the investigation, did little to staunch the rising tide of black anger with the government and the police, which the ANC accuses of helping Inkatha attackers.

Black leaders on Monday called for more mass protests in the coming weeks. And some leaders, including Tutu, touched on a particularly sensitive area for many whites by suggesting that the country be barred from the Summer Olympics next month in Barcelona.

The ANC, which suspended one-on-one talks with the white government Sunday, also canceled meetings Monday with the multi-party constitutional negotiating forum, the Convention for a Democratic South Africa (CODESA).

The ANC plans to discuss its continued participation in negotiations, as well as its campaign of marches, workers’ staying away from their jobs and other forms of what it calls “mass action,” at a closed-door meeting of its national executive committee today.

“Clearly, the negotiation process is in a very serious crisis,” said Pravin Gordhan, who heads the management committee of the multi-party talks. “The traumatic and hideous events of the past few days are likely to cause a major disruption in the negotiation process.”

World leaders, diplomats, businessmen and government officials in South Africa called on the ANC not to pull out of CODESA, a convention of 19 black and white political parties that is seen as the last best hope for drawing up a blueprint for a multiracial democracy in the country. CODESA has been stalled since mid-May, however, by growing distrust between the ANC and the government.

Although ANC President Nelson Mandela has said that the ANC remains committed to negotiations, he suspended bilateral talks with the government Sunday, saying he could no longer defend contacts with a government that was “murdering our people.”

Although Mandela said the ANC would remain in CODESA, ANC negotiators Monday asked for an indefinite postponement of meetings, saying they needed to receive a fresh mandate from their national executive.

The ANC has been under intense pressure from its rank and file to pull out of negotiations completely because of the government’s alleged role in continuing township violence.

“The (black) masses are pointing out in the strongest terms possible that, despite the negotiations, nothing has changed for them,” said Robert Schrire, a professor of political studies at the University of Cape Town.

And all across South Africa in recent days, blacks have been growing more radical, angry and unwilling to negotiate with a government that continues to blame the ANC for the violence and refuses to even acknowledge that others, including Inkatha and some elements of the police, may also be involved.

Many blacks believe that the government secretly hopes to retain power in the long run and is trying to damage the standing of the ANC, which has the most support of any black group in South Africa.

And Mandela’s decision to suspend talks was welcomed by many blacks Monday.

“I think these guys (the government) are not changing. They still want to cling to power,” said Gideon Skhosana, the black manager of a fast-food restaurant in Klerksdorp, west of Johannesburg.

Typical of many once-moderate blacks, Skhosana believes it is up to the government to show good-faith efforts to end the violence, which has claimed more than 3,000 lives in the last two years.

“I don’t see a resolution without more bloodshed, unless the government sorts this thing out,” Skhosana said.

Few South Africans see a quick resolution to the current conflict.

The government believes that the ANC’s “mass action” campaign incites violence because blacks often are forced to skip work and attend rallies. Inkatha, for instance, has strongly opposed the ANC’s tactic of workers’ staying off the job in the past, and violence often has been the result.

But the ANC contends that mass protests are the only peaceful way for blacks, who outnumber whites 5 to 1, to make their wishes known in a country where they still have no vote and are subject to the policies of a white-minority government.

De Klerk’s apartheid reform program and the opening of black-white negotiations have resulted in the lifting of a broad range of international sanctions against Pretoria. But, if the talks stall, he could face ANC calls for the sanctions to be reimposed.

Archbishop Tutu, the 1984 Nobel Peace laureate who is generally considered a moderate black leader, told an audience in his church in Cape Town that South Africa should be expelled from the Olympic Games next month unless the government moves swiftly to stop political violence.