NEWS ANALYSIS : Killing of 28 Underlines Need for S. Africa Talks : Violence: Ciskei incident shows that delay in resuming negotiations will only increase deadly cycle.

The killing of up to 28 African National Congress supporters by black troops in South Africa’s Ciskei homeland sent relations between the government and its opponents to a new low Tuesday. But it also highlighted something both sides know, that negotiations between blacks and whites remain South Africa’s only hope for peace and democracy.

The credibility of both President Frederik W. de Klerk’s white government and the ANC, the leading black opposition group, has been severely damaged by the blood bath, and a swift resumption of negotiations is unlikely.

The ANC suspended negotiations--designed to extend voting rights to blacks and to draw up a constitutional blueprint acceptable to all parties--after the June massacre of 40 blacks in Boipatong township. It then demanded that the government take concrete steps to end violence.

But the incident Monday has been a stark reminder to sober-thinking leaders in the ANC and the government that a long delay in returning to the bargaining table will only increase the cycle of violence and perhaps make it more difficult for any leader to control the growing numbers of unhappy blacks.

It was a point that the U.S. government, through State Department spokesman Richard Boucher, stressed Tuesday. Deploring “the excessive and unjustified use of lethal force” by the Ciskei troops but urging a swift resumption of the negotiations, Boucher added:

“Only an early and successful negotiation of the basic issues of transition can bring an end to the violence and produce the change that South Africa needs. . . .”

Until negotiations do resume, bringing with them the prospect of a black vote, the ANC will continue to be under increased pressure from militants in the organization to take to the streets to express their frustration. And that prospect is likely to force the government to meet the ANC’s demands and get negotiations back on track.

The aftermath of the massacre spawned plenty of finger-pointing Tuesday.

Liberal white newspapers joined the government in blaming ANC leaders for charging down a “revolutionary” road to power by staging a protest that was almost certain to provoke a reaction from the leader of the Ciskei homeland, Brig. Gen. Oupa Gqozo.

“If ANC President (Nelson) Mandela is to abandon his commitment to negotiation and be led by militants and hotheads, the future holds little hope,” said Business Day, a financial newspaper in Johannesburg.

An editorial in the Star, South Africa’s biggest daily newspaper, criticized the ANC for staging a protest “so provocative that casualties became almost inevitable.”

Roelof F. (Pik) Botha, the South African foreign minister, accused the ANC of trying to seize power, and he said the government will not resume power-sharing talks until the ANC abandons “Communist plans” to destroy the economy through protest strikes.

The ruling National Party called ANC leaders “hard-liners hooked on the Communist shortcut of trying to force the country to its knees and seizing power by force.”

But ANC leaders blamed President de Klerk for propping up Gqozo, the 40-year-old Ciskei leader who seized power in a coup in March, 1990, and has used force to prohibit anti-apartheid activity among the homeland’s 1 million inhabitants.

“We are blaming De Klerk for this and we do it without hesitation,” said ANC Secretary General Cyril Ramaphosa, who was at the march Monday and fell to the ground to avoid the two, one-minute bursts of rifle fire that wounded almost 200 in addition to the 28 that were killed. Ramaphosa noted that Ciskei was created by apartheid, and he said Pretoria is morally responsible for atrocities committed in the homeland’s name.

“My own assessment is that negotiations are in serious jeopardy,” he said.

Mandela, in a visit to the scene Tuesday, also called for the ouster of Gqozo. In remarks that reflected irritation but also moderation, he made several proposals to ease the growing tension in Ciskei.

In addition to the removal of Gqozo, Mandela suggested that an interim administration be appointed for the homeland, an independent investigation of the massacre be conducted, laws prohibiting political activity be repealed, and South African military intelligence officers be removed from Ciskei.

“What has happened is a serious stumbling block to a return to negotiations,” Mandela said. “A climate of free political activity throughout the whole country, including the Bantustans (the homelands) is an important condition for a return to negotiations.”

The ANC leader laid yellow daffodils and roses at the massacre site, just inside the border of Ciskei, a 3,200-square-mile tract on the southeastern flank of South Africa.

One frequent critic of the ANC, John Kane-Berman, head of the independent South African Institute for Race Relations, said the ANC has asked for tragedy in leading the march into Ciskei.

But he added: “It’s distressing that security forces have not yet learned to deal with provocation without loss of life. Until they do, the cycle of violence will continue.”

Church leaders met Gqozo on Tuesday in a bid to ease tensions. A delegation led by Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, said the group won a tentative agreement from the Ciskei leader to conduct a referendum to determine whether his people want to be reincorporated into South Africa.

But the church officials said Gqozo had not yet agreed to a date.

Tutu also placed flowers at the scene, saying that he and other church officials had come to express their support, not for the ANC, “but for our people in their struggle for justice and peace. We have come to wipe your tears.”

When Gqozo first came to power, he won friends in the ANC by promising to support reintegration of his homeland into South Africa. But he turned against the congress after an aborted coup attempt that he said was the work of anti-apartheid activists.

The ANC had targeted him for the protest Monday because he is seen as one of the autocratic homeland leaders with the weakest grip on his territory, and because he has become a close ally of the South African government.

Like the three other so-called independent black homelands in South Africa, Ciskei is not recognized by any major Western government. The homelands are one of the most contentious issues facing the country. Both the ANC and the government say they want the independent homelands and six other self-governing territories reincorporated into a unified South Africa, but De Klerk is unwilling to dissolve them.

The killings could trigger more violence in Ciskei, some ANC officials warned.

“There is so much anger and bitterness,” said Chris Hani, a militant ANC leader who heads the South African Communist Party. “People will kill members of the Ciskei police and defense force.”

Hundreds of protesters clashed with police outside the Ciskei consulates in Johannesburg and Cape Town on Tuesday, but no one was seriously injured. Several of them sprayed the Johannesburg office with red paint, which they said symbolized the blood of those killed Monday.

Kraft, chief of The Times’ Johannesburg bureau, is on assignment in Angola.