German Parliament Ratifies Treaty for European Union

Germany ratified the treaty on European political and economic union today, becoming the 10th of the 12 European Community nations to do so. The Bundesrat, Parliament's upper house, unanimously approved the treaty after just two hours of debate. The Bundestag, the lower house, approved it on Dec. 2.

All 12 European Community nations approved the treaty in the Dutch town of Maastricht last year, but each country's parliament or voters must ratify it before it can take effect. Still undecided are Denmark, whose voters have already refused once to ratify the treaty, and Britain, where fear of a loss of sovereignty appears high.

Source: New York Times

Guerrilla Group Vows More Attacks on South Africa Whites

A small black guerrilla faction warned today that its attack on a golf club on Saturday night marked the beginning of a new campaign against white civilian targets, evidently aimed at disrupting a compromise on South Africa's political future. But the Government and the leading black organization, Nelson Mandela's African National Congress, fiercely condemned the attack in King William's Town, which left two couples dead and 17 people wounded at a wine tasting where much of the town's white gentry had gathered.

The Government and the congress planned to meet on Wednesday for a new round of talks to fix a target date for elections. But some South Africans fear that a sustained campaign of terrorism against whites, if it materializes, could weaken the Government's ability to surrender power. "There will be more attacks of this nature with more frequency, especially in white areas," Johnny Majozi, information officer of the Azanian Peoples Liberation Army, told the South African Press Association from Harare, Zimbabwe. "We would like to remind white South Africans that there is a war going on inside the country and they should not be surprised."

The attack, believed to be the worst political violence against white civilians since President F. W. de Klerk took office in 1989, has horrified and alarmed whites. It was the kind of indiscriminate violence that has become commonplace in black communities, but has left whites untouched. The Conservative Party, which opposes Mr. de Klerk's dealings with the black majority, called for a police crackdown and said the attack was the work of "terrorists permitted to operate freely in South Africa by a Government that has lost the will to govern." So far, the theme has not been picked up by more mainstream whites. "My guess is that this poses no short-term threat to the transition," said John Kane-Berman, director of the South African Institute of Race Relations. "But if attacks like this continue and the Government is unable to stop them, it helps to erode the Government's support base and its room for maneuver."

The Azanian Peoples Liberation Army is the guerrilla wing of the Pan Africanist Congress, which broke away from the African National Congress in 1959 to pursue a more militant ideology rooted in black consciousness. In contrast to the African National Congress, the Pan Africanist Congress has insisted on keeping an active military wing. Until recently, it refused to negotiate with the white Government. In the 1970's and 1980's the guerrilla wing of the African National Congress waged a sporadic underground war, briefly including attacks on sporting events and shopping malls. The congress suspended its guerrilla war after Mr. de Klerk legalized it in 1990. Although small in numbers, the Pan Africanist Congress has attracted considerable support among disaffected young people in the black townships with its militant stance. Recently leaders of the militant group have met with Government officials and said they were willing to join the multiparty negotiations on a new political order. It was not clear why the organization's armed wing would simultaneously try to undermine the talks, but it has a history of bitter internal divisions.

Benny Alexander, the secretary-general of the Pan Africanist Congress, issued a statement after the King William's Town killings, declining to comment on the origins of the assault but protesting the "international hullabaloo around the attack purely because white people have died."

Source: New York Times

Liberian Rebel Is No Friend of Democracy, Nigerian Says

The military leader of Nigeria opened a regional meeting on the fighting in Liberia today by denouncing the Liberian rebel leader Charles Taylor.

"Taylor must now be seen by the whole world for what he really represents, said the Nigerian head of state, Gen. Ibrahim Babangida. "He does not represent democracy. He does not believe in the freedom of choice that is the God-given right of the Liberian people."

Leaders of 8 of the 16 countries in the Economic Community of West African States gathered here to discuss imposing an economic blockade on Mr. Taylor and proposals for a cease-fire to end his drive on the Liberian capital.

Source: New York Times

New Fighting in Liberia

Heavy fighting broke out today between rival militias on the outskirts of Liberia's capital, prompting a West African peacekeeping force to rush troops to the area. Residents of Monrovia said fighters belonging to a rebel group led by Charles Taylor had attacked a mission school housing members of the five-nation peacekeeping force, which arrived in 1990 at the height of the country's civil war. They also attacked a rival militia controlling an important bridge across the Po River, nine miles from Monrovia.

Source: New York Times

Ousted Haitian Chief, at U.N., Denounces Vatican

The Rev. Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the ousted Haitian leader, denounced the Vatican at the United Nations today, calling it the only state in the world to recognize the Government that overthrew him.

In an address to the General Assembly the radical Catholic priest, deposed exactly one year ago after becoming Haiti's first freely elected President, also called for a tighter economic blockade against the Caribbean country, which has one of the lowest standards of living in the world. "What a scandal!" he cried from the speakers rostrum to applause and cries of support from Haitians packing the Assembly hall's public galleries. "Rejected by all the states of the world, these criminals are still recognized by the Vatican, the only state to bless the crimes it should have condemned in the name of the God of Justice and Peace. What would have been the Vatican's attitude if Haiti was inhabited by whites?" he said. "What would have been Pope John Paul II's attitude if Haiti had been Polish?" 'George Bush Must Go!'

Noting that the Pope will be visiting the nearby Dominican Republic next month, Father Aristide expressed doubt that the Pontiff would he also stop in Haiti to make an effort to settle the strife there. As he spoke, a big crowd of mainly Haitian demonstrators, estimated by the police to have reached 10,000 at its peak, rallied outside the United Nations to support the ousted leader, chanting: "No Aristide! No peace!" and "George Bush must go!"

The demonstrators marched peacefully over the Brooklyn Bridge to the United Nations, waving their fists in the air, carrying placards and chanting for peace in Haiti. Some carried coffins drapped with banners saying "Stop racism" and depicting President Bush with a red tongue and horns, reflecting the demonstrators perception that the United States, like most other countries, is loosing interest in Haiti and is no longer pushing vigorously for Father Aristide's return. "I want democracy," said Rosette Elien, a 40-year-old Haitian from Brooklyn. "Bush is not for democracy."

Among the speakers at the demonstration was Jon-Christopher Bua, a spokesman for Gov. Bill Clinton of Arkansas, who said that if elected the Democratic candidate for President would reverse President Bush's policy and allow fleeing Haitians to apply for political asylum in the United States.

This was Father Aristide's second address to the United Nations, which still recognizes him as Haiti's legitimate head of state. And the applause delegates gave him was still warm and friendly, though the chances of his returning as Haiti's President are smaller now following the collapse of two agreements the Organization of American States thought it had negotiated to allow his return. 'Crime Against Humanity'

The O.A.S. also imposed a trade embargo on Haiti after Father Aristide was overthrown by military units supported by a business class frightened of his radical reformist ideas. But the United States subsequently exempted American-owned companies on the island from many of its provisions to enable them to continue manufacturing and preserve some employment there.

Father Aristide called for that blockade to be tightened further, saying that despite criticism that it would only make Haiti poorer still, "the Haitian people again say yes to the embargo." He called the coup that unseated him "a crime against humanity" and described present-day Haiti as a country where "blood runs, corpses pile up and repression grows greater."

Like last year, Father Aristide's address was a colorful, theatrical affair, in which he vaunted his attachment to the radical liberation theology. While popular among impoverished Roman Catholic classes in Latin America, those views have put him out of favor with the conservative Vatican.

Source: New York Times

THE WORLD; Aristide Seeks More Than Moral Support

WHEN he confidently strode to the podium of the General Assembly one year ago bearing news of democracy's triumph after nearly two centuries of bloody failures, Haiti's first elected President, the Rev. Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was the toast of the United Nations. This week, as Haiti's deposed President, overthrown in a military coup no sooner than he had returned home, Father Aristide will stand before the same audience to plead that the world not forget his country's tragedy.

He will surely be greeted with hearty applause, but it is much less certain that he will get anything beyond moral support. Diplomats say there is little chance that anything but the use or serious threat of force can now dislodge a Haitian army that has bloodily secured its hold on the nation while gorging itself on drug money and contraband since the coup last Sept. 30. Such a rescue seems remote. If anything, as time has passed, the world consensus against taking action on Father Aristide's behalf has hardened. For different reasons, likely defenders seem not to want to get involved.

At the United Nations, increasingly stretched by compelling crises from Yugoslavia to Somalia, most diplomats agree there is little chance that the body will take up Father Aristide's expected call to actively work for his return. Nor is the Organization of American States as indignant as it once was. Having announced plans for a 500-member observer mission to Haiti, the O.A.S. is now ploddingly assembling a corps of 18.

As for the United States, since shortly after the overthrow -- when Secretary of State James Baker echoed President Bush's famous "this aggression will not stand" statement about Iraq -- little consideration has been given to backing up American principles in Haiti with American muscle.

Virtually all observers agree that facing down Haiti's ill-equipped and undisciplined 7,000-man army would take little in the way of force. Recently, an adviser of the provisional Government of the army-backed Prime Minister Marc L. Bazin repeated Father Aristide's longtime complaint when he said that "all it would take is one phone call" from Washington to send the army leadership packing. Certainly in Haiti, it is keenly recalled that the United States played a critical behind-the-scenes role in forcing out the last military leader, Col. Prosper Avril, setting the stage for the democratic elections that Father Aristide won in a landslide.

Father Aristide has undoubtedly been frustrated that other nations have found ways to avoid effectively rallying to his cause. Mexico, for example, has invoked deep-seated opposition to American or even multilateral intervention by the O.A.S. in a member country's internal affairs. The European Community has failed to even slow its trade with Haiti.

Indeed, supporters and opponents of Father Aristide agree, nothing more threatening than a leaky and ineffective embargo, quickly imposed on Haiti after the coup, has ever been seriously contemplated, which reflects Washington's deep-seated ambivalence about a leftward-tilting nationalist whose style diplomats say has sometimes been disquietingly erratic. Father Aristide rose to popularity on the wings of his calls for redemption for the hemisphere's poorest and most oppressed people and on stinging speeches that often depicted the United States as a citadel of evil and the root of many of his country's problems. His salutations have long invoked the name of Charlemagne Peralte, a leader of the Haitian resistance to the United States' occupation early in the century, so he himself recognizes the trickiness of calling for stronger American measures.

Despite much blood on the army's hands, United States diplomats consider it a vital counterweight to Father Aristide, whose class-struggle rhetoric during his nearly eight months in office, threatened or antagonized traditional power centers at home and abroad. For months Washington has mixed almost rote-like public statements of the need to restore Haitian democracy with private comments that confess its unwillingness to take on the military. "He wants us to get rid of his enemies for him so that he can have a free hand to mop up, and we're just not going to do that for him," a senior official said in a comment that has been repeatedly echoed in American diplomatic circles.

For Father Aristide there remains only the slim possibility that a new effort at mediation by the former Jamaican Prime Minister Michael N. Manley, who was recently recruited by the O.A.S. for the task, can revive diplomatic efforts to restore him to office. Failing that, Father Aristide's backers can only hope that a people who have so far remained quiescent, will rise up again, as they did in 1986 to cast off the Duvalier family dictatorship, and reclaim the right to choose their leaders. "It is possible that the international community fails to find the instruments to help us and even that our civilian Government fails," said Father Aristide's Ambassador to Washington, Jean Casimir. "But time cannot help these gorillas, and given time, the Haitian people cannot lose."

Source: New York Times

A Bloody Ambush Jolts South Africa Toward New Talks

THE contest for the future of South Africa seems, even on good days, like a duel of schizophrenics. Both the white Government and the African National Congress are torn by conflicting impulses of civility and confrontation. Last week, on a very bad day at a razor-wire checkpoint near the town of Bisho, each side put forward its belligerent half. The outcome was grimly predictable, and sufficiently chilling that now, mercifully, the conciliatory halves may have their turn.

Within the African National Congress, the divide is between the romantic militancy born of the liberation movement that the congress was during its 30 years of banishment, and the prudent pragmatism of the governing party that the congress hopes to become. These are not simply rival factions but rival instincts that coexist to some degree in many congress leaders.

Last week the Bastille-stormers were personified by Ronnie Kasrils, a thickset, kinetic white Communist who fought in the congress's armed underground in the days when ordinary political avenues were foreclosed. The occasion was the sort of "Leipzig option" mobilization that Mr. Kasrils had long promoted, only to be overruled by the pragmatists. But as frustration mounted in the black townships, the congress's mood had swung toward militancy. Top leaders of the congress endorsed a march aimed at occupying Bisho, the campus-sized capital of the ostensibly independent black homeland called Ciskei, and toppling its military dictator.

As the main column of marchers marked time at the border, Mr. Kasrils was assigned to lead a breakaway group in a flanking maneuver. The group sprinted toward the city center through a gap left -- temptingly, and no doubt deliberately -- in the fence, and straight into an ambush by several hundred machine guns of the Ciskei army.

The white Government of President F. W. de Klerk has its own split personality. There is the Rubicon-crossing, apartheid-disavowing, make-nice Government that craves the world's respect, and that promises majority rule. And there is the Red-baiting, divide-and-rule, make-war Government that shudders at the prospect of rule by the black majority; this is the Government that tolerates (if it does not actually orchestrate) the police torture, vigilante murder and homeland despotism that keep that majority from coalescing.

On Monday, while the make-nice Mr. de Klerk was occupied at a conference on the fine points of federalism in the forthcoming nonracial South Africa, his make-war surrogate at the Bisho border was Brigadier Oupa J. Gqozo, master of Ciskei. Mr. de Klerk supplies the brigadier with guns and comforts and advisers; the brigadier, in turn, does all he can to rattle the African National Congress in a region that has traditionally been its stronghold. When Mr. Kasril's young following charged through that inviting gap in the fence, Brigadier Gqozo's soldiers opened fire with abandon.

In simpler times, the consequences of such a massacre would have been clear-cut: worldwide opprobrium heaped upon Mr. de Klerk, calls from South African white liberals for sanctions against the regime, perhaps a surge of fresh martyrs to the barricades.

But these are more ambiguous times. Although, in fact, little has changed on the ground -- the black majority is still impoverished, separate and disenfranchised -- perceptions have changed profoundly. By disowning the ideology of racial oppression, Mr. de Klerk has persuaded much of the world to judge him in ordinary political terms rather than moral absolutes. By entering the political realm, the African National Congress has conceded that it will no longer be judged solely on the justice of its grand cause; it will be judged on its fitness to govern.

Neither side admits to being even marginally in the wrong at Bisho. Mr. de Klerk, at a press conference Wednesday, never even suggested that firing thousands of rounds without warning into a crowd that is fleeing in panic might constitute excessive force.

Source: New York Times

The Bhisho Massacre: the day 29 people died

Bhisho, the administrative capital of the Eastern Cape, was once the capital of the Ciskei, a so-called homeland of South Africa. It gave its name to a massacre that happened there on September 7 1992 when Ciskei strongman Oupa Gqozo's troops opened fire on an ANC march heading into the capital. Twenty-eight protesters and one soldier died. Hundreds of others were injured.

At that time, negotiations for South Africa's non-racial constitution had broken down amid accusations that the ruling National Party was fomenting "third force" violence in black townships. Another stumbling block was the refusal of Gqozo to participate in negotiations and undertake to give up the homeland's "independence". The meeting at the stadium in Bhisho was organised by the ANC to protest this, to demand free political activity and an end to state violence and repression in the Ciskei.

About 80 000 people - including Chris Hani, Cyril Ramaphosa, Steve Tshwete and Harry Gwala - marched from King William's Town to Bhisho, chanting "no more slavery".

Disastrous miscalculation

Determined to peacefully occupy Bhisho and force Gqozo's resignation, Ronnie Kasrils, a stalwart of ANC protests, led a section of the marchers through a gap in the razor wire erected to contain them. In his autobiography Armed and Dangerous: My Undercover Struggle with Apartheid, Kasrils writes: "By not charging in their [soldiers] direction, by giving them a wide berth, we would avoid confrontation." The organisers and the demonstrators believed that with the eyes of the world on them, Gqozo's troops would not dare open fire.

But this was a disastrous miscalculation. Ciskei troops opened fire, ostensibly on the orders of Gqozo.

Recounting it later, Kasrils writes: "One moment I was running, my comrades with me. The next instant, without warning, the soldiers opened fire." Kasrils hit the ground, but bullets cut into the crowd following him. Petros Vantyu, his bodyguard, was one of those hit by the gunfire. "As I began to crawl towards him, the gunfire broke out again, as angry and prolonged as before, and I froze where I lay. The sinister whirr of projectiles overhead, followed by four dull thuds, made me realise with horror that they were firing grenades as well."

Deadlock breaker

An official investigation revealed that the first fusillade lasted one-and-a-half minutes, while the second lasted a minute. More than 425 rounds were fired. At the end, bodies lay scattered in pools of blood along the line of razor wire erected to contain the marchers.

Gqozo denied giving the order to fire. He accused ANC demonstrators of opening fire first, killing a soldier. He said his troops had acted with restraint. Then-president FW de Klerk said at the time that the massacre resulted from the ANC's failure to observe march conditions agreed with Ciskei authorities. "I did not start mass action, the ANC did. It is a fallacy, an unsubstantiated lie, that my government was involved," he said.

But Nelson Mandela differed with him. "The creation of a climate for free political activity, including in the homelands, is an important condition for us to return to the negotiating table. An enormous responsibility rests with the South African government to create that climate."

In the end, massacres in Bhisho and Boipatong, where 49 people were killed, acted as deadlock-breaking mechanisms. Key players in the negotiation process were forced to rethink their strategies and options. The spiral of violence gave way to the reopening of talks and South Africa once again resumed its journey towards democracy and freedom, which culminated in the country's first democratic elections in 1994.

Source: Buffalo City Metro

U.N. Chief Asks Council to Send 30 More Observers to South Africa

Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali recommended to the Security Council today that 30 United Nations observers be sent to South Africa to help existing groups in defusing violence and creating conditions for further negotiations toward "a democratic, nonracial and united" country. He also recommended the creation of undetermined number of operation centers at the major "flashpoints" around South Africa where violence is most likely to occur. The Secretary General said "there is desperate need" for these centers, staffed 24 hours a day and capable at all times of "acting immediately to defuse incipient problems."

The report also urged the immediate release of all political prisoners. This could contribute to "improving the political climate, creating trust and burying the unhappy past," Mr. Boutros-Ghali said. The Secretary General's report was based on the findings of his special envoy, Cyrus R. Vance, who with a small team of specialists from the United Nations Secretariat visited South Africa from July 21 to 31. Mr. Vance's trip was authorized by the Security Council, which had expressed its concern at the break in the negotiations between the white minority Government of South Africa and the African National Congress over a new nonracial constitution.

The new report took note of what the Secretary General called the longstanding capacity for violence by the various political groups in South Africa, he called for "a series of investigations" into the army, the police, Spear of the Nation, the Azanian People's Army, the KwaZulu police and certain private "security firms" and others that, he said, contribute to the violence that "is so central to the lack of trust in the political life of the country." Such investigations, the Secretary General said, would be undertaken by the Commission of Inquiry into Public Violence and Intimidation headed by Justice Richard Goldstone. "Should the Commission need further financing for its expanded work," the Secretary General said, "I would urge the Government to be forthcoming."

Mr. Boutros-Ghali disclosed that he sent seven observers to South Africa last week after Nelson Mandela, the head of the African National Congress, requested them to witness the demonstrations connected with the work stoppage called by the congress. President F. W. de Klerk made it clear that he had no objection to objective observers, Mr. Boutros-Ghali said, and on arriving, they observed the mass action in 11 different parts of the country. The seven joined three United Nations observers already in South Africa.

The Secretary General said the experiences of the 10 observers monitoring last week's demonstrations "could serve a valuable purpose in defining the tasks" of the 30 additional observers he is recommending. He said missions similar to that carried out by Mr. Vance should be "undertaken on a quarterly basis" or more often if the situation warrants, with reports provided to the Security Council.

Source: New York Times

Boipatong massacre

The Boipatong massacre took place on the night of 17 June 1992 in the township of Boipatong, South Africa.

Armed hostel inmates shoot and hack their way through the Black township of Boipatong, leaving forty-six people dead and scores injured, including women and children.  The ANC withdraws from Codesa negotiations.

Source:  SA History Online

Meetings With Aristide Emphasize Human Rights

Amid reports of discussions of a new hemispheric initiative for resolving the Haitian political standoff, American human rights experts have begun meetings with Haiti's deposed President, the Rev. Jean-Bertrand Aristide, to discuss weaknesses in his human rights record and help devise plans to smooth his eventual return.

Participants said the meetings have involved detailed discussions of what Father Aristide's critics call human rights abuses during his nearly eight-month tenure in office, as well as talks about internationally brokered peace plans in other badly torn countries like El Salvador, which the human rights experts said could provide useful models for Haiti.

American diplomats have said that Father Aristide's insistence that Lieut. Gen. Raoul Cedras, Haiti's military commander, be either immediately imprisoned or exiled for having presided over the coup against him has been an obstacle to international diplomatic efforts to secure the exiled President's return.

The human rights experts, from private groups, said they hoped to persuade Father Aristide of the wisdom of deferring the question of General Cedras's fate, while allowing international monitoring to help assure order in the country and provide for his own security. Under such a plan, the question of punishment for soldiers who overthrew Father Aristide last September, as well as those involved in abuses since then, would be handled by an independent monitoring agency to be established under international supervision.

Although they described the discussions as useful, participants said that Father Aristide refused to say that there had been any specific human rights problems during his tenure or to endorse a gradual approach to restoring him to power that would defer the question of punishment for the army leadership.

Neither Father Aristide nor his Ambassador to Washington, Jean Casimir, responded to requests for comment. But participants in the discussions said Father Aristide complained that by seeking a solution that did not involve the immediate removal of General Cedras, Washington was trying to "stick me with a Pinochet," a reference to Chile's former military dictator, Gen. Augusto Pinochet. General Pinochet, who has stayed on as armed forces chief, has a tense relationship with the civilian Government of President Patricio Aylwin.

The meeting's participants said that Father Aristide wondered aloud whether he could avoid being assassinated under such a plan. "It was an interesting exchange of views, but we didn't come to any understanding ultimately," said Kenneth Roth, deputy director of Human Rights Watch, the New York-based rights organization. "He didn't relinquish the demand for the immediate punishment of some individuals in the army, and that insistence, rather than allowing an independent process to take place gradually, perpetuates a stalemate."

Participants in the meetings also expressed frustration with what they described as Father Aristide's failure to address widespread assertions that his statements as President had repeatedly seemed to condone mob-style violence. Human rights experts said that Father Aristide gave little ground beyond the general pledges he has made in the past to reject popular violence.

Another participant cited a speech by Father Aristide to Haitian students in which he praised the presence of a mob armed with gasoline and tires -- which are often used in the vigilante justice Father Aristide's critics have suggested he condoned -- outside a courthouse where a notorious former Interior Minister was on trial.

A senior American official, speaking of what he called Father Aristide's lack of candor on human rights questions, said, "It is a very serious problem, and I don't know what to do about it."

Another official, saying that many people in Haiti already have "little confidence in what he says," called on Father Aristide to issue some "good, stiff declarations about popular justice and some direct acknowledgement that he had some responsibility for certain things that went wrong."

Source: New York Times

South Africa Talks in Deadlock; De Klerk Confers With Mandela

Negotiations on South Africa's future deadlocked today, prompting President F. W. de Klerk and Nelson Mandela, president of the African National Congress, to meet to try to devise a solution. After the two leaders met with their advisers and then for more than an hour with each other, Mr. Mandela said they would report the outcome on Saturday. He described their meeting as "substantial," the South Africa Press Association reported, but did not say what they had decided. A resolution of the impasse would pave the way for the creation of a transitional government that would draft a new constitution extending political equality to blacks.

The cause of the deadlock was the inability of one of five working groups created by the Convention for a Democratic South Africa, as the negotiating forum is called, to agree on one of the proposed guidelines for a new constitution. The disputed point is the size of the legislative margin of approval for constitutional provisions covering regional issues. The dispute, which erupted in invective between the Government and the congress, blocked the presentation of progress reports by the four other working groups on the country's future. But Mr. Mandela told journalists that it would be naive for anybody to think that there would be no deadlocks in the negotiations. "While there is a will to address problems, there is hope those problems will be solved," said Mr. Mandela, who sounded noticeably more relaxed than his subordinates did earlier today. "We are confident that in the weeks or months that lie ahead we will be able to make good progress," Mr. Mandela said before meeting with Mr. de Klerk.

The convention, which opened last December in a mood of enthusiasm, created the working groups to consider aspects of the transition and submit their plans to the current meeting. But as the second full session of the convention confronted real issues today, the good will soured. The Government and the congress accused each other of derailing the talks, and some smaller parties took sides, splitting the convention nearly down the middle. "The Government continues to lack the will to negotiate seriously," charged Chris Hani, the head of the South African Communist Party, a congress ally. Foreign Minister Roelof F. Botha railed against what he called the "A.N.C.-Communist-Marxist school of belief" that "a winner takes all and grabs the power." Cyril Ramaphosa, the secretary general of the African National Congress, said at a news conference that he saw very little chance that agreement would be reached on the convention floor. "We have become convinced that the South African Government didn't come to today's working group meeting with the clear intent of signing an agreement," Mr. Ramaphosa said.

The Government delegation said the failure to agree on one point should not obscure what its negotiator Tertius Delport called "substantial and very important progress" on other fronts. The Government side proposed that the convention consider the reports of the other working groups, leaving the unresolved issue for discussion later. Mr. Delport cautioned against haste. "We're not dealing with the question at which time the Sunday school will start," he said. "We're dealing with the future of our country." But Mr. Ramaphosa rejected a piecemeal approach and said the entire package must be considered. He and other congress officials accused the Government of trying to postpone the eventuality of majority rule. "We do not want to be caught in a position where the transition goes on forever," said Mohammed Valli Moosa, a negotiator for the congress.

The disagreement involved the margin of approval that would be needed for constitutional provisions dealing specifically with regional issues. The African National Congress says it should be 70 percent of the votes in a elected constitution-making legislature; the Government has held out for 75 percent. These two key participants reached virtual consensus on other proposed guidelines, but the 5 percent gap has stalled unrelated issues that were scheduled for discussion and approval at the negotiations. Their inability to close the modest 5 percent difference reflected in part their exasperation after hours of negotiations, and also their unwillingness to appear to their constituencies to be giving too much ground. The regional issue is a delicate one. The governing National Party and some of the other 18 political parties and organizations in the talks believe that the interests of minorities, including whites, can be better protected if power is decentralized down to the regional level, even though whites do not form the majority in any region.

The National Party also wants the new Parliament to have a second chamber, called a Senate, whose members would be elected regionally rather than nationally. The African National Congress and the Government had already compromised on the margin by which a constitution-making body should enact legislation. The congress initially proposed a two-thirds majority, while the Government wanted 75 percent. They agreed upon 70 percent for most constitutional provisions and 75 percent for the bill of rights, but differed over the regional issues. Each side also introduced further conditions. The Government said its proposed Senate should have equal authority in approving the constitution, giving it a potential veto over what the first chamber drafted.

And the African National Congress said that if the constitution-making body could not pass its provisions by a sufficient majority, after six months the unresolved issues should be put to a public referendum. The congress and the Government have agreed that the transition take place in two stages, with an appointed executive council supervising the government during the initial stage. They also agreed that an interim legislature elected by universal franchise should draft the new constitution.

Source: New York Times

300 Americans Evacuated After Coup in Sierra Leone

American military planes evacuated more than 300 Americans to Germany today in the aftermath of a military coup in this West African nation.

Most of the 270 Americans flown to the Rhein military airbase in Frankfurt in an initial flight were staff members from the United States Embassy, and the spouses and children of diplomats, according to a senior diplomat at the mission who insisted on not being identified.

A second plane with 57 people aboard carried United States Government workers, their families and a missionary group, said Col. Ron Maples, a spokesman for the United States European Command.

Source: New York Times

New Junta in Sierra Leone Replaces Leader

Military officers who toppled the President of this West African nation arrested their leader today and replaced him with the junta's second-in-command, officials said. The informants, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the 22-member ruling council arrested Lieut. Col. Yayah Kanu and replaced him with Capt. Valentine Strasser.

Several Cabinet ministers and party officials who had served under President Joseph Momoh were also reported arrested, and the state radio said the junta had ordered officials of the deposed Government to surrender or face serious consequences.

Middle-ranking officers who led the coup on Wednesday said they had not been paid for three months and had nothing to eat while fighting rebels near the border.

Source: New York Times

'Fight With Us' Against Military, Ousted Haitian Urges Americans

Raising a fist in salute to more than 2,500 cheering Haitian students at Brooklyn College, the deposed President of Haiti, the Rev. Jean-Bertrand Aristide, extolled his faith in the youth of his country yesterday and said he was certain that they would "rally the resistance so that Haiti will become a democratic country once again."

Then, addressing Americans, Father Aristide, whose Government was toppled by the Haitian military last September, said, "We need you to fight with us in the same way we saw Americans fight in Nicaragua." Earlier, in remarks to 200 members of the Baptist Ministers' Conference of Greater New York and Vicinity at the Convent Avenue Baptist Church in Harlem, Father Aristide reportedly called for a stepped-up embargo of Haiti and said he believed that Washington should take stronger action to force the Haitian military to give up its hold on political power. "He said they have given beautiful statements," said the Rev. V. Simpson Turner, the president of the ministers' conference, referring to the support voiced so far by Washington officials. "But he said what's needed is action." Any Criticism Is Muted.

In a telephone interview yesterday, though, Father Aristide had no criticism of the Bush Administration. He did not believe, he said, that United States or other foreign troops should be sent to Haiti, as some supporters in New York have suggested during his visit here. He said he believed that the Administration was doing everything it could and that he was "sure they will see the result of what they are doing."

The United States cut aid to Haiti and imposed an economic embargo shortly after the Sept. 30 coup. Administration officials said last week that they were considering further steps against the military Government, including tightening the embargo. On May 18, the Foreign Ministers of the Organization of American States are to meet in the Bahamas, with Haiti the most urgent matter on their agenda.

After four days of meetings in New York that went for the first time far beyond talks with Haitian-Americans, Father Aristide is to spend today seeing journalists and members of his government in exile before leaving for Boston on Wednesday. He came to New York from Washington on a visit of several weeks that journalists and diplomats who follow Caribbean affairs say was partly an effort to insure that the issue of Haiti's political turmoil remains in the public eye. Suggests Internal U.S. Pressure

Mr. Turner said Father Aristide urged the Baptist ministers to "pressure our Congressmen" and city officials so they would insist that the Bush Administration not relax and begin to accommodate the Haitian military.

Father Aristide began his New York visit with a breakfast Friday with business and labor leaders, then went to City Hall to talk with Mayor David N. Dinkins and members of the City Council. On Saturday, he drove to a resort in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania to address a regional meeting of the National Association of Black Journalists and that evening attended a $150-a-plate dinner in Queens that was organized to pay for the visit. On Sunday, Father Ariside spoke privately with Gov. Mario M. Cuomo and then strode onto a stage in Central Park, where he was cheered by tens of thousands of Haitian exiles.

Speaking of Mr. Cuomo, Mayor Dinkins and of Representative Charles B. Rangel, a Democrat who represents Harlem, Father Aristide said: "Those people are so good by the way they welcome us here. We are proud to be their friends."

Fritz Longchamp, who speaks for Father Aristide's exile government at the United Nations, was at the ousted President's side yesterday. He said the Haitian leader had sought a broader audience on his visit because "there is a sense of urgency in Haiti. "He wants to go back to Haiti with the full support not only of the U.S. Government," Mr. Longchamp said, "but of the American people."

Source: New York Times

Ivory Coast and South Africa To Establish Diplomatic Ties

Ivory Coast and South Africa said today that they were establishing full diplomatic ties. Ivory Coast is the first black-ruled African nation to accord Pretoria full diplomatic recognition since President F. W. de Klerk began scrapping apartheid laws two years ago.

Communication Minister Auguste Miremont said Ivory Coast's decision was in response to Mr. de Klerk's moves, which won the backing of the white electorate in a referendum last month.

Source: new York Times

Sonap Petroleum (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd v Pappadogianis (483/90) [1992] ZASCA 56; 1992 (3) SA 234 (AD); [1992] 2 All SA 114 (A) (30 March 1992)

The decisive question in this case is: did the party whose actual intention did not conform to the common intention expressed, lead the other party, as a reasonable man, to believe that his declared intention represented his actual intention?

To answer this question, a three-fold enquiry is usually necessary, namely, first, was there a misrepresentation as to one party's intention; secondly, who made that representation, and thirdly, was the other party misled thereby? The last question postulates two possibilities: was he actually misled and would a reasonable man have been misled?

In the present case the appellant represented to the respondent that its intention was to reduce the period of the lease. One has then to determine whether the misrepresentation had any effect, i e whether the respondent was misled thereby. If he realised (or should have realised as a reasonable man) that there was a real possibility of a mistake in the offer, he would have had a duty to speak and to enquire whether the expressed offer was the intended offer. Only thereafter could he accept. The snapping up of a bargain in the knowledge of such a possibility of a mistake in the offer would not be bona fide.

Whether there is a duty to speak will obviously depend on the facts of each case.

Source: SAFLII

A Mandate For Change

Despite the overwhelming mandate that whites gave President F. W. de Klerk to end their monopoly on political power, South Africa has a distance to travel before blacks inherit the vote and other basic rights flowing from it.

The ringing approval of 68.7 percent of the whites who voted in Tuesday's referendum left little doubt that Mr. de Klerk has their support to negotiate power sharing with blacks.

"The referendum result is close to being unique in the annals of politics," Hermann Giliomee, a political scientist at the University of Cape Town, wrote in The Cape Times newspaper today. "Here the South African whites, who have become a byword in the world for myopic bigotry, endorse a process which is most likely to reduce their political representation in a year or two to a minority in an elected legislature."

"To make it even more exceptional," Professor Giliomee said, "whites have done this from a position of relative strength and in the absence of any sense of imminent defeat."

Source: New York Times

Ousted Haitian Leader Signs Pact With Old Rival

Nearly five months after he was ousted in a coup, the exiled Haitian President, the Rev. Jean-Bertrand Aristide, signed an agreement today with a former political rival who is now his Prime Minister, pledging to form a "government of national unity" and to begin a timetable for the President's return to Haiti.

With a formal accord in place, diplomats say Father Aristide, who was deposed by the military under Lieut. Gen. Raoul Cedras, may also be more willing to compromise on the army chief's future. In an interview on the ABC News program "Nightline" on Monday night, Father Aristide spoke of removing General Cedras, whom he calls a common criminal unqualfied for amnesty, by constitutional means as part of an army reorganization.

Before leaving Washington, where they have been talking since Friday, Father Aristide and his Prime Minister-designate, Rene Theodore, agreed to meet again in a month to discuss a multi-party cabinet as well as the mechanics of the President's return.

In the meantime, the two leaders -- Father Aristide in exile in Venezuela and Mr. Theodore in Haiti -- are to consult regularly. Before returning to Caracas, the exiled President left today for Geneva, where he is to address a meeting of the United Nations Human Rights Commission.

The accord signed by the two leaders provides for the sending of an international human rights team to Haiti to strengthen protection for civil liberties before Father Aristide returns. The Organization of American States has put together a list of about 60 potential members of a democracy mission similar to one sent to Nicaragua in 1990 to observe electoral politics, defuse crises, resettle rebels and verify accords.

Father Aristide, who won 67 percent of the votes in December 1990, has in effect exchanged some of this mandate for a compromise solution that gives him a far greater chance of returning. Many of his supporters are sharply critical of the accords signed this weekend because they are perceived as cutting into the President's legitimate powers. The Council on Hemispheric Affairs, a Washington policy group, called the agreement with leaders of Parliament "a near-total defeat for Haitian democracy."

A statement by the council said: "As a combined result of ineffectual actions taken by the State Department, the regional organization and the European Community, which never respected the embargo, Aristide was effectively left with no option but to mutilate his own stature by signing away his powers in exchange for the still uncertain prospect of his restoration to what will now be a figurehead presidency."

The Haitian Embassy here, which has remained loyal to the ousted President, disagrees, saying that the President will enjoy all the rights and privileges granted by the Constitution. U.S. to Help the Lawmen. In an interview with the Voice of America, which has expanded broadcasts to Haiti in recent months, Bernard W. Aronson, Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, said the United States was ready to assist Haiti in professionalizing its army and police.

Representative John Conyers Jr., Democrat of Michigan and a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, believes that the Bush Administration did not do enough to dislodge Haiti's military rulers earlier, thus forcing Father Aristide to compromise his party and program. "What the military thugs down there understand is that they have got a nod and a wink from the U.S. Government," Mr. Conyers said in an interview today after introducing legislation that would give Haitian refugees safe haven in the United States until democracy is restored. "If you wanted to see an end to this mobster rule," he continued, "ban air travel to the United States, impose a blockade on Haitian ships into Miami, ask for a United Nations task force."

On Wednesday, the House will consider his legislation and other proposals to grant what is known as "temporary protected status" to Haitians.

Source: New York Times