NEWS ANALYSIS : ‘Black Referendum’ Strike Boosts ANC, May Revive S. African Talks

The black strike that gripped this country Monday and Tuesday exacted a heavy toll in lives and lost wages, but it also brought the African National Congress and the white government significantly closer to reviving constitutional negotiations.

The strike, which ended Tuesday, was designed to put pressure on President Frederik W. de Klerk’s government to halt widespread township violence and relinquish its demand for an effective white veto over the country’s future.

But the protest also was a black referendum on Nelson Mandela’s ANC. And the overwhelming black support for the strike, despite opposition from other important black groups, has strengthened the ANC’s bargaining position and improved the prospects for its return to the table.

Herman Cohen, U.S. assistant secretary of state for African affairs, said Tuesday that the strike “has demonstrated the strength of the ANC.” Cohen, who is in South Africa for meetings with Mandela, De Klerk and other leaders, said the protest could help restart talks by giving Mandela a clear mandate to continue negotiations.

The strike held firm Tuesday. Townships were deserted, commuter trains ran empty and many businesses remained closed.

The ANC said 4 million of the country’s 7-million-member black work force stayed home both days, although business leaders put the figure slightly lower. And a business group estimated that the protest would cost $100 million in lost production and millions more in potential international investment.

Police said 17 people died in strike-related violence Tuesday, bringing the two-day toll to about 30, only slightly higher than usual. Five people were shot to death Tuesday in the Johannesburg township of Alexandra, and three ANC members were killed in Ratanda, east of Johannesburg, when supporters of the ANC rival Inkatha Freedom Party opened fire on a funeral procession.

In the nominally independent black homeland of Ciskei, heavily armed troops massed on the border to prevent thousands of ANC supporters from marching on the capital, Bisho. Ciskei’s military ruler, Brigadier Oupa Gqozo, a fierce opponent of the ANC, had vowed to open fire on the protesters, but the march was allowed to continue after lengthy negotiations.

The United Nations’ 10-member monitoring team rushed to several trouble spots to avert other confrontations. In Krugersdorp, west of Johannesburg, 40 members of the right-wing Afrikaner Resistance Movement tried to block 8,000 ANC supporters from marching on the town. But the march went ahead after a U.N. official intervened.

The strike was the centerpiece of the ANC’s monthlong “mass action” campaign of marches, rallies, sit-ins and other protests, which continue today when Mandela leads a march on the seat of government in Pretoria.

To be sure, political apathy is widespread in the impoverished townships. Previous ANC protests have been poorly attended, and many blacks joined the strike, often forfeiting two days’ pay, more out of fear of reprisals from ANC supporters than out of genuine political commitment.

Nevertheless, the two-day strike has proved that the ANC still has the power to bring the townships and many businesses to a halt, a lesson not lost on the government, which has been the harshest critic of the ANC’s tactics.

Willem Kleynhans, a political analyst in Pretoria, said the strike sent a strong signal to whites that “blacks will not be satisfied with a constitution in which minority groups have special powers” to reject laws passed by a government elected by a majority of the country.

Analysts likened the strike to the white referendum that gave De Klerk a mandate in March to negotiate his government out of power. This “black referendum,” as some are calling it, was a strong endorsement of Mandela’s plan for the future and his hopes for a peaceful transfer of power from the privileged white minority to a multiracial majority.

The ANC suspended talks seven weeks ago after the massacre of more than 40 blacks in Boipatong, an attack apparently carried out by Inkatha supporters from a nearby migrant worker hostel.

Since then, the ANC and the government, despite their war of memos and often-bitter rhetoric, have moved steadily closer to resolving their dispute.

The government has indicated that it is prepared to make further concessions to ANC demands when this week’s protests have ended. De Klerk already has taken some steps to bridge the gap. And while the ANC has publicly rejected those steps as inadequate, ANC leaders say privately that they soon may be in a position to ask their followers to resume negotiations.

One hopeful sign was the resumption of talks between the government and the ANC last week. Those discussions, the first direct contact between the two parties since the Boipatong massacre, focused on the 400 political prisoners that the ANC says remain behind bars in South Africa. The release of at least some prisoners is believed to be imminent.

The ANC also has demanded that the government allow international experts to monitor the violence and that it ban the carrying of dangerous weapons, phase out the system of migrant worker hostels and accept the principle of majority rule in a new constitution.

De Klerk says the dispute over majority rule, in this country where blacks outnumber whites 5 to 1, can only be resolved when negotiations resume. But on the other demands, he has made important concessions, even though it has cost him political capital.

He invited British experts to oversee the police investigation into the Boipatong massacre and endured the experts’ sharp criticism of the police for their poor investigative techniques.

The government also, for the first time in its history, agreed to allow a U.N. team into the country on a fact-finding mission.

The report by team leader Cyrus R. Vance, a former U.S. secretary of state, is due to be released later this week, and it is likely to recommend that a U.N. team continue to monitor violence and South Africa’s progress toward a new constitution.

The U.N. presence, which has included a team to monitor the protests this week, has been hailed by the ANC as a victory.

And although the United Nations is playing only an advisory role here, the ANC will be able to point to the international team as a key government concession when Mandela decides to return to the table.