
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, June 20, 1990                   TAG: 9006200098
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA                                LENGTH: Medium

APARTHEID LAW REPEALED

Parliament on Tuesday repealed a major apartheid law used for decades to segregate public facilities ranging from restaurants to libraries to buses.

The repeal of the Separate Amenities Act was the latest in a series of reforms by President F.W. de Klerk since he came to power last year. The changes have angered conservative whites, who oppose the idea of sharing power with the black majority.

The Separate Amenities Act was passed in 1953 and gave governments and privately owned enterprises the right to reserve facilities such as parks, hotels, swimming pools, toilets and recreation centers for whites only.

Tony Leon, an anti-apartheid member of Parliament who voted to scrap the measure, said 37 years of segregated facilities had given the country a "disfigured human landscape."

Jan Hoon of the pro-apartheid Conservative Party opposed repeal of the measure, saying it was another step down the road to black rule.

In major cities such as Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban, public facilities have been integrated for years. But in hundreds of smaller towns and villages, there have been no public facilities for blacks or vastly inferior segregated ones.

The Separate Amenities Act does not affect neighborhoods and schools, the main institutions still segregated under the government's apartheid laws.

At Parliament in Cape Town, de Klerk's ruling National Party and the anti-apartheid Democratic Party outvoted the Conservative Party to scrap the law, 105-38. The mixed-race and Indian chambers of Parliament voted unanimously for repeal. The country's 28 million blacks have no voice in national affairs.

De Klerk in February promised to scrap the Separate Amenities Act. He says he wants to end racial discrimination and negotiate a new constitution that will bring blacks into the national government.

However, he opposes a one-man, one-vote, majority-rule system, saying it would replace white domination with black domination. The president envisions a mechanism that would give whites veto power on major policy decisions.

De Klerk has promised that next year the government will amend the Group Areas Act that segregates neighborhoods by race. He opposes full repeal of the measure and appears to favor a system that would allow some neighborhoods to be integrated and others to remain segregated.

by CNB