Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, June 8, 1990 TAG: 9006080313
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Cox News Service
DATELINE: JOHANNESBURG LENGTH: Medium
The decision means that in Soweto and scores of other black townships, the white-led police force will lose its immunity from prosecution if blacks are unjustly smashed at a rally or riot.
It also means white police commissioners can't ban public gatherings or restrict attendance at black funerals without proving the necessity in court. Warrants will be needed for most searches and seizures.
In the southeastern province of Natal - still wrenched apart by black-vs.-black neighborhood wars - the emergency will stay in effect indefinitely, even though its rules have not stopped the killing.
Just this year, 500 blacks have died in Natal's turf violence. That raises to about 4,000 the number of blacks in Natal who have died since former President P.W. Botha proclaimed the nationwide state of emergency on June 12, 1986.
The partial lifting reflected a narrow compromise between hawkish and dovish factions in de Klerk's white Cabinet. Except for Mandela's Paris plaudits, de Klerk did not appear to gain any fresh support, either among the country's 28 million blacks or its 5 million whites.
Mandela, commenting after his talks with French President Francois Mitterrand, told journalists, "I am very happy. This is a victory for all the people of South Africa, white and black."
But he added that to respond by reducing foreign sanctions "would be a grave mistake. It would be regarded by the people of South Africa as a stab in back."
Meanwhile, white voters were digesting the news that de Klerk's National Party was nearly defeated Thursday by the right-wing Conservatives in a bellwether election for a vacant seat in the white parliament.
Since the white national election last September, the Conservatives' share of the vote in the district shot up from 20 percent to 44 percent. Because this was the first white by-election since Mandela's release, the vote was taken as an indication de Klerk has lost the allegiance of perhaps one out of four of the voters who backed his party in the general election last fall.
Hours before the emergency was partly lifted, morning newspapers called the results in the by-election a "blow" for de Klerk and a "severe setback" for his reform plans.
Against that backdrop, de Klerk plunged ahead with his partial lifting of emergency rules. As a goodwill gesture to blacks, he added he was releasing 48 ANC members who had been convicted of political crimes.
De Klerk complimented the ANC for striving to keep peace in the townships.
He then called on the ANC to "stop vacillating" about whether it supports violence, adding that the ANC "still has a long way to go."
by CNB