South Africa Creeping Doubts About a Support

By Ed Magnuson

Once again, there was an air of expectancy. Under intense pressure, at home and abroad, to lift the gloom created by his refusal a week earlier to indicate any path away from apartheid, P.W. Botha had a chance to clarify his intentions. Some 4,000 young people at the University of Pretoria greeted South Africa's State President with cheers, whistles and applause. But Botha did not budge. Portraying himself as a moderate operating between "radical Communist forces" and "conservative elements who shout murder and fire," he delivered much the same message as he had in his speech to members of the ruling National Party in Durban a week earlier. "Reform does not come overnight," he declared. "We shall not be stampeded into a situation of panic by irresponsible elements. We shall not be forced to sell out our proud heritage."

Botha's continued intransigence only aggravated the disappointment and confusion that his earlier speech had generated. His refusal to make any major concessions was especially puzzling in light of the many hints from senior South African officials that the government would propose major policy changes. The mood of despair was evident in black townships, where at week's end the authorities caused a furor by arresting more than 700 black children, some of them under ten, for not attending school. As violence continued, the death toll for the past month rose to 129.

In the U.S., officials seemed uncertain of what steps to take next. Four years of "constructive engagement," a policy of quiet diplomacy designed to nudge the South African government toward racial reform, have produced few results. Initially, National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane urged South Africans to seize upon the vague hints of future reforms in Botha's Durban speech. He suggested that "those leaders on both sides who are looking into the abyss of massive violence" should "challenge this government, ask them to put their money where their mouth is." But later, White House Spokesman Larry Speakes took the unusual step of publicly asking Botha to "clarify" his intentions, adding that "there is a crisis of confidence in South Africa."

The U.S. also seemed uncertain of how to deal with Desmond Tutu, the black Anglican bishop of Johannesburg. When Tutu refused to join a group of leading South African clergymen at a meeting with Botha, the White House publicly scolded him, without referring to him by name. Said Speakes: "A refusal by any party to meet and negotiate only worsens the prospects for understanding in South Africa." A senior State Department official explained that the U.S. has been urging the South African government to negotiate, and "we also have to make the same point with influential leaders like Tutu." But then the Rev. Jerry Falwell, one of Ronald Reagan's strongest supporters, returned from a trip to South Africa and called the bishop "a phony" for claiming to speak for all blacks in that country, a claim Tutu has never made (see RELIGION). Embarrassed by Falwell's outburst, the State Department then praised Tutu as "a recognized black leader, a man of great personal integrity, one of the black community's legitimate spokesmen, a voice of moderation."

Possibly signaling that the Administration's patience with Botha had run out, a White House official hinted that Reagan may employ some type of sanctions against the South African government, despite his repeated criticism of such tactics as ineffective. While Reagan will probably veto the package of penalties that Congress is expected to approve when it reconvenes next month, he could put a few of the lesser steps into effect by Executive Order. These might include a ban on the sale of computers used to aid in the administration of apartheid, as well as an end to Government loans to U.S. companies that do not follow guidelines requiring that black and white workers in South Africa be treated equally. But Reagan reportedly would reject any ban on the importation of Krugerrand gold coins or any halt to new U.S. investments in South Africa. Such moves, in the Administration's view, would reduce job opportunities for blacks.

Botha's meeting with the clergymen did nothing to lift the growing concern over South Africa's future. One reason Tutu gave for not attending was that he saw no hope for progress so soon after Botha's Durban speech. The nine clergymen, including blacks and whites and five of the nation's major denominations, made four demands: that apartheid be dismantled; that the state of emergency declared by the government last July 20 be lifted; that a national convention be called to rewrite the constitution; and that black leaders be allowed to take part in shaping this document. Afterward, the Rev. Denis Hurley, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Durban, said Botha had not responded directly to any of the points. The President's only concession was to look into the clergymen's charges of police brutality toward blacks.

Beyond the continued killings, the new allegations against police last week included rape. A 70-year-old black woman in the town of Cradock claimed in a sworn statement that on Aug. 3 two white soldiers seized her, carried her away in an armored personnel carrier, and raped her in a field. A 16-year-old girl from the black township of Soweto told a local community leader that she had been gang-raped by black policemen while being held without charge in a jail.

In Soweto, meanwhile, police swept through neighborhoods, searched homes and seized black schoolchildren who have been boycotting classes to protest apartheid and inferior education for blacks. Some of those detained were jailed overnight. When Tutu heard of the seizures, he rushed to the scene, and, again demonstrating his gift for mediation, defused the situation. He won an agreement from Brigadier Johann Coetzee, the commissioner of South Africa's police, to release all children under 13 immediately, and the rest after their names were recorded. Coetzee also promised not to detain any more children under ten. In Cape province, six blacks were killed and 26 wounded when police fired shotguns at a mob they claimed had been pelting them with stones.

In a rare indication that the authorities were trying to reduce tensions, the Transvaal division of the Supreme Court in Pretoria delayed for at least three weeks the scheduled hanging of Benjamin Moloise, 30, a black factory worker and poet who had been convicted of killing a black police officer in 1982. Meanwhile, leaders of the all-black National Union of Mineworkers postponed their strike deadline for one week.

But from his prison cell near Cape Town, Nelson Mandela, leader of the outlawed African National Congress, told a reporter for the Washington Times that he saw "no room for peaceful struggle" in the fight against apartheid and that there was "no alternative" to violence. The charismatic black leader has spent 23 years in prison and has become the focus of a worldwide clamor for his release. Defying a government ban against talking to more than one person at a time, Mandela's wife Winnie publicly rejected a gift of $10,000 from the U.S. embassy in Pretoria to restore her home, which unidentified arsonists had gutted two weeks ago. To accept the money, she said, would imply her acceptance of U.S. policy toward South Africa.

In the dark mood inspired by Botha's defiant stance, the announcement in Cape Town by the Rev. Allan Boesak, the colored (mixed-race) president of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, that he would lead a mass protest for the release of Nelson Mandela this week posed a potential for more bloodshed. A leading figure in the multiracial, antiapartheid United Democratic Front, Boesak predicted ominously that the protest action will "turn this country on its head." Sadly, without any help from his foes, President Botha had already achieved much the same end.

With reporting by Johanna McGeary/Washington and Bruce W. Nelan/Johannesburg