Clinton Vows to Help Keep S. Africa Free

The first government chosen by all South Africa’s people welcomed the first U.S. president ever to visit the country Thursday, and President Clinton marked the historic moment by pledging to help preserve the new “truly free” South Africa.

“Simply put, America wants a strong South Africa, America needs a strong South Africa, and we are determined to work with you as you build a strong South Africa,” Clinton said in an address before the country’s Parliament and President Nelson Mandela.

Four years after South Africa abandoned its apartheid system and voted in longtime political prisoner Mandela as its new leader, Clinton praised the country’s accomplishments and held it up as a beacon of hope for nations still living with tyranny and state-sanctioned inequality.

“Now the courage and the imagination that created the new South Africa and the principles that guide your constitution inspire all of us to be animated by the belief that one day humanity all over the world can at last be released from the bonds of hatred and bigotry,” Clinton said.

South Africa’s leaders, who are struggling to build an equitable society after decades of legally enforced discrimination, are looking to the U.S. for continued support.

“The very survival and growth of democracy is threatened by poverty, selfishness and greed. As we face this challenge, we shall count on America to make common cause,” Popo Molefe, premier of South Africa’s Northwest province, said in introducing Clinton.

The president’s three-day stay in South Africa is the only official state visit of his landmark 12-day excursion through Africa.

Clinton was given the red-carpet treatment in Cape Town, a picturesque seaside city on the tip of the African continent. Standing beside Mandela on the plaza outside the Cape Town office of the president, Clinton was honored with a 21-gun salute. A South African army band played the “Star-Spangled Banner” and the new South African anthem, which combines the official songs of the Afrikaners and the African National Congress. The ANC fought for decades to end discrimination and win equal rights for blacks.

Mandela, 79, then escorted Clinton down the road to the Parliament building.

Clinton brought no new monetary aid for South Africa. But his message of continued support pleased officials here, who have been concerned that Washington would cut aid when new trade legislation is adopted. These worries stem from the debate over the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act, legislation making its way through Congress that is aimed at boosting U.S. trade and investment in the continent.

South African Deputy President Thabo Mbeki voiced his concern to Clinton in a meeting Thursday.

While Africa needs to develop trade and investment with the U.S. and the rest of the world, it is not ready to do without financial aid, Mbeki said after the meeting.

Clinton assured him that the U.S. is not about to abandon Africa. He noted that, by 2000, he hopes to increase U.S. aid for development and economic assistance to Africa to $880 million.

The fiscal 1998 budget contained $725 million of such aid for Africa, with about $60 million of that going to South Africa for its efforts to help reverse the detrimental effects of apartheid. Clinton has asked to increase those funds by $70 million for fiscal 1999.

But the GOP-controlled Congress is unlikely to support such an increase because many Republicans believe that the trade and investment package should replace some of the aid.

In addition, Clinton has requested a significant decrease in funds for food and humanitarian assistance, so his overall request for aid to Africa in 1999 is actually about $80 million less than this year’s.

But Clinton used his trip to a housing project--supported in part through a two-year $300,000 U.S. grant--to explain why assistance to Africa should continue.

The president and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton dressed down to do some work at the project, which helps single mothers living in shanties build their own homes.

Women wearing brightly colored skirts, turbans and ceremonial white makeup showed the first couple how to lay cinder blocks and mortar and check that they are level.

Hillary Clinton visited the project a year ago, and the settlement of 18 houses has grown to 104 since then.

The president brought a large delegation with him to South Africa that included notable African Americans.

At his Parliament address, he said the Americans, whose ancestors were slaves, and South Africa’s leaders, who were repressed by apartheid, are “united in the powerful poetry of justice.”

Kweisi Mfume, president of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People and a member of the delegation, applauded Clinton’s rhetoric but offered a cautionary note.

The real proof of Clinton’s sincerity, he said, will come once the trip is over. It is “what we do after that really determines whether or not this has real worth,” he said.