Botha rules out ‘democracy’

Press, 19 April 1986, Page 11

Botha rules out ‘democracy’

NZPA-Reuter Johannesburg South Africa’s President, Mr Pieter Botha, has ruled out Western-style democracy but promised apartheid reform. A West German elder statesman, Willy Brandt, said yesterday that time was running out for the republic.

Mr Botha told Parliament yesterday that oneman, one-vote in a unitary State meant dictatorship by the most powerful black group. In ... South Africa, it would mean a greater struggle and more bloodshed than that presently experienced,” he said. South Africa remained committed to the principle of autonomous black tribal homelands. But Mr Botha repeated that he would press on with reform of apartheid, which opponents say cannot be changed but must be scrapped.

Mr Brandt issued his warning — that not much time was left for a peaceful transition from white rule — as he wound up a three-day, fact-finding tour of South Africa.

Mr Brandt, on the eve of chairing a meeting of the Socialist International in Botswana, said he felt that more radicalisation could be avoided only if

the black nationalist leader, Nelson Mandela, were released from jail. The release of Mr Mandela, jailed in 1964 on charges of sabotage and plotting revolution but still an acknowledged leader of the outlawed African National Congress, is widely advocated abroad. The Government belatedly released yesterday a report on the first big outbreak of unrest in the present cycle of violence, on Septemer 3, 1984, in ’ townships south of Johannesburg. The report on black education in the Sharpeville area was commissioned by the Government after the outbreak of unrest and prepared in March last year by an academic, Tjaart van der Walt, who is at times highly critical of the authorities. “Humanly speaking the entire crisis situation could have been prevented had there not been such an incomprehensible lack of sensitivity and communication,” Dr van der Walt wrote. “Alarm signals were disregarded, legitimate grievances fell on deaf ears, mistrust and suspicion mounted visibly, and sooner or later the situation simply had to explode.”