Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, May 3, 1990 TAG: 9005030416
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: CAPETOWN, SOUTH AFRICA LENGTH: Medium
The three days of meetings are to remove obstacles to full-scale negotiations on a new constitution that would give the 28-million black majority a voice in national affairs for the first time.
De Klerk and Mandela said South Africans of all races want swift change, and all political parties must work toward a peaceful solution to racial and political divisions.
Nearby, the pro-apartheid Conservative Party walked out of a debate in Parliament to protest the talks. The Conservative leader, Andries Treurnicht, said the government should not negotiate with an organization that has made guerrilla attacks and is still committed to armed struggle.
"South African law forbids all these actions," said Treurnicht, whose party is the main opposition in Parliament's white chamber. The Parliament also has chambers for people of mixed-race and Indian descent. Blacks are excluded.
In a statement before the talks began, Mandela said, "The people as a whole want the peace and stability that can only come about as a result of the total abolition of the apartheid system."
But de Klerk warned that violence that has claimed more than 500 lives in the past three months, mostly among black groups, threatens such change.
"The vast majority of South Africans desire the negotiation process, aimed at a new constitution, to get started in all earnestness," de Klerk said. "The government wishes this to happen as soon as possible and is consequently approaching the talks with the utmost earnestness."
The ANC demands the release of all political prisoners, lifting of the state of emergency and the return of exiled activists as preconditions to constitutional negotiations.
The government, meanwhile, is demanding the ANC, a guerrilla movement, renounce its largely dormant armed struggle.
The talks are the first between a white government and an ANC delegation since the organization was founded in 1912.
In his statement before the talks, Mandela attempted to calm white fears about a black government, saying whites would enjoy full rights in a non-racial democratic state.
He made part of his remarks in Afrikaans, the language of the Dutch-descended Afrikaners who comprise 3 million of the country's 5 million whites and dominate the government.
Mandela called the talks a historic turning point marking the end of a "servant and master" relationship between blacks and whites.
De Klerk has promised to end white rule, but he opposes a simple one-person, one-vote system. He says such a system would replace white domination with black domination.
The ANC says it is committed to a fully democratic system with no special rights for any minority. The ANC also wants a radical restructuring of the economy that could include nationalizing banks, gold mines and other leading industries.
by CNB