Inauguration Draws World to South Africa

The Mongolians sent regrets. The Icelanders too. The Rwandans and Bosnians are busy. And the folks in Cambodia, Cameroon and Chad forgot their manners: They haven’t even replied.

But just about everybody else who’s anybody in world affairs is coming, or has angled for an invitation, to what’s being called the mother of all parties--the inauguration gala here Tuesday of Nelson Mandela as the first black president of South Africa.

Vice President Al Gore arrives today. So does First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton and three jets jammed with U.S. Cabinet secretaries, members of Congress and official hangers-on. But they’re small fry. At last count, about 46 presidents, prime ministers and other heads of state or government--plus plenty of has-beens--were en route.

So were at least nine kings, princes, sheiks and other members of royalty. U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, who according to protocol never attends inaugurations, was the first to arrive. Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat will wear his formal fatigues.

In all, leaders and representatives of 145 nations and 16 international organizations, plus 800-odd journalists, not to mention 3,000 performers and 300 sangomas-- traditional healers and witch doctors--and 150,000 citizens of this jubilant land will gather for a national coming-out party after decades of apartheid-era isolation, when no foreign dignitary would show his face here.

“It’s probably the largest gathering of heads of state anywhere in the world,” gushed Patrick Evans, spokesman for the inaugural committee. Added an exhausted spokeswoman for the South African Communication Service: “It’s a logistic nightmare, a sheer bloody nightmare.”

The world’s obsession with South Africa has always been odd. There’s no oil here, and no foreign military bases. It’s a small country, with an economy half that of Belgium and a population of 40 million.

But the horrors of apartheid, the legalized system of racial segregation, sparked such moral outrage around the globe that Africa’s last white-ruled state maintained an outsize grip on international attention. And the dramatic climax, Mandela’s electoral triumph, has proved nearly as cathartic overseas as it has at home.

In an interview from Geneva with the Star, a Johannesburg newspaper, Boutros-Ghali said he was coming, in part, to boost his own morale.

“We have been confronted . . . by so many setbacks and difficulties, we just want to enjoy it,” the beleaguered U.N. chief said.

Mandela will be formally elected president today by the Parliament in Cape Town. The formal transfer of power from the outgoing president, Frederik W. de Klerk, will be here at the ornate Union Buildings, the government offices long seen as the symbol of white minority rule.

No longer. Teams of workers have refurbished the hilltop site over recent weeks with paint, plywood and bullet-proof glass. Vast flower gardens were torn out and replanted, brick walkways replaced with granite, giant tents erected and schedules timed to the second.

If all goes according to plan, Chief Justice Michael Corbett will administer the oath of office to Mandela at 11:08 a.m. Tuesday in a huge open-air amphitheater ringed by stately sandstone columns and cupolas. The new president will give his inaugural speech with his back to a glorious vista of hazy hills, jacaranda trees and gleaming office towers.

But several hundred of the 6,036 official guests--those actually given white plastic seats inside the amphitheater--will find themselves with no view at all, not even of Mandela. Their seats are blocked by high walls and statues.

Evans shrugged. “It’s not important to see,” he said. “It’s important to be here.”

There may be other problems as well.

“We’ve run out of portable toilets,” Evans fretted. He’s rented every one of them within a 200-mile radius. “There are no more to be got.”

And what if it rains? “Then they get wet,” he said with a laugh.

“But it won’t rain. Will it?” he added nervously, turning to an aide. “No, no, it won’t rain,” the aide replied through clenched teeth.

But that’s nit-picking. There will be Hindu prayers, a reading from the Old Testament and another from the Koran. The effervescent Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu--one of at least three Nobel Peace Prize winners on the stage (Mandela and De Klerk shared one last year)--will offer a Christian blessing.

Watching the ceremony on huge screens placed around the manicured gardens below will be 150,000 people who had the connections or the luck to score a ticket. Next comes a 2 1/2-hour show with 3,000 performers, including 100 African drummers. Organizers predict that up to 1 billion people around the world will watch the festivities on television.

With the memory of an election-eve wave of right-wing terrorist bombings still fresh, security obviously will be tight.

Reporters must gather at a soccer field at 4:30 a.m. to catch shuttle buses to the 11 a.m. ceremony. Sewer plates are being welded shut, aircraft are being ordered away, and hospitals have been placed on emergency footing.

Ten miles of razor wire will be laid out to keep traffic and crowds away. Members of the public--all 150,000--will be bused in from distant points and repeatedly frisked for weapons and alcohol.

So far, Evans said, all looks good for the big day. Mandela came out, without telling the press, last Tuesday afternoon to examine the site and stand on the stage. The only witnesses were a couple of star-struck American tourists.

“There were also some workers on the podium,” Evans said. “The first thing he did was to greet the workers. Then he greeted the officials. It really was the best proof to me that he is really going to be the people’s president.”