Nelson Mandela holds the keys. He is South Africa's true jailer, and the country's white leaders his prisoners. That is the pronounced significance of Mr. Mandela's visit from prison to President Pieter W. Botha and the trek of Frederik W. de Klerk, Mr. Botha's heir-in-waiting, to the capitals of Europe. Soon Mr. de Klerk will visit Washington. A major U.S. initiative is possible.
Mr. Mandela's tea with President Botha need not mean his imminent release from detention after 26 years. Nor does his recent family birthday party in prison, his comparatively comfortable accommodations there and the attention being paid to him and his movements by all South Africans. Nevertheless, the gradual shift of Mr. Mandela, 71, from antihero to hero, is intended by the white-minority Government to confer a new legitimacy on him and, according to a recent speech by Mr. de Klerk, also on the African National Congress, Mr. Mandela's exiled and banned guerrilla movememt.
Mr. Botha, Mr. de Klerk and most other white political leaders now know that Mr. Mandela and the A.N.C. are essential to any solution of South Africa's color crisis. Mr. Botha wanted, in the last three months of his tenure as President, to measure the mettle of his foremost adversary. He and Mr. de Klerk at last well appreciate that he must be released. But when? And how? To free Mr. Mandela before the national election on Sept. 6 (from which black voters are excluded), would adversely affect the fortunes of Mr. de Klerk's ruling National Party. Mr. Botha might release him during those few weeks after the election when he is still in power, before turning the presidency over to Mr. de Klerk. But a new government would be ill-equipped to deal with the tumultuous result. Moreover, the National Party is also intensely interested in the results of the Constituent Assembly election in neighboring Namibia. The election there will be held Nov. 1, and the National Party hopes to obtain as many votes as possible for the white-led Democratic Turnhalle Alliance in its competition with the South West Africa People's Organization. Although there is a conference of Commonwealth heads in late October, and Mr. Mandela's release would prevent any renewed threat of sanctions and gain South Africa the backing of Britain, the impact of such a release on the Namibian election would prove more decisive for South Africa. For these reasons, and because Mr. de Klerk will, understandably, want carefully to prepare South Africa for Mr. Mandela's release, the beginning of the end of apartheid is not yet at hand.
The fact that white South Africa courts Mr. Mandela, may even be negotiating at a low level with the A.N.C. and hardly tries to prevent large delegations from making the trek to Lusaka, Zambia, to meet and be impressed by the A.N.C. leaders, adds excitement and new hope to those who seek peace in South Africa. Certainly the African National Congress, having largely shed its rampant Marxism in the post-Gorbachev era, is ready to help plan South Africa's future with whites. Both sides are studying constitutional options anew. Once Mr. Mandela is free, other political prisoners are released and the A.N.C. unbanned, then the guerilla movement, internal African opponents of apartheid and the Government will be able to negotiate.
That scenario, once a fantasy, is now - according to the representatives of the Government and A.N.C. -very much closer at hand than at any time since 1948. No one believes the National Party wants to give up all its power, but a weariness of combat and miserable economic forecasts impel change. South Africa has severe balance of payments problems, high inflation, a falling index of business confidence and little room for maneuver. Only a political settlement can permit a return to positive rates of growth. Mr. de Klerk will come to power knowing that Mr. Mandela's freedom and negotiations with the A.N.C. are the costs of prosperity.
When Mr. de Klerk visits Washington this month to see Secretary of State James Baker, many Congressmen and perhaps President Bush, he can be reminded how much the U.S. wants to see a negotiated settlement. More than that, Mr. Baker or Mr. Bush can offer to convene and preside over a Camp David session for South Africa. It might even make sense for President Bush to offer to preside with Mikhael Gorbachev, who also wants a negotiated peace in South Africa. The African National Congress is ready to talk, and so might whites be also willing to talk, realistically in a prestigious setting about their future in a united South Africa.
Source: New York Times
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