By Charlie van Gelderen AT LAST IT IS out. The end of apartheid (sic) does not mean the end of white rule. Not if FW De Klerk can help it.
This was quite clear trom his speech ai she opening or the while parliament on January 25. Before any how consulton, do ood by the Con vention for a Democratic South Africa' (CODESA) could come into force. it would be submitted to a national Not a referendum on the basis of one person one vote. The result of this wouki be a foregone conclusion. Nol There will be a separate referendum for each national group as defined by the existing South Arican law - a separate referendum for Blacks. coloureos, indians and whites, And the decision of the white electorate would be dacitive This was underlined at a briefing to muraises belore the President spoke by the Foreign Minister, Pik Botha, and Finance Minister. Barend du Ples sis. When asked what would happen Y the whites voted against the resolu19-party negotia tion forum (CODESA), Botha said We would have to go back to the drawing board. There is no alternative."
Gone are the ilusions held by borals, the ANC, and the Communist Party (SACP) that '(the white) parliaFeb. 15, 1992 No. 16 No end to white rule: De Klerk ment is now a mere ruther stamo. ar Hennie Serfontein, the political correspondent of Viye Weakbiad, put 2 as reconty is vanuary 17 On December 20. John Carlin, the usually wall-intormed and percontive Johagnesburg correspondent of The Independent wrote ' state power in South Africa will no longer reside exclusively in the hands of the white mincrity. in practice, if not in law, the critical decisions conceming the future of the country will be made within CODESA. Parlia. ment wil be sovereign in name rather than substance. Power sharing is the name of the game. He went on Sor *And whie CODESA itseif lacks the power to decisions (adopted by CODESA) into law, the government has promised that such decisions will be, as one senior official put it. morally binding Carlin and Serfontein are not the only ones who in De Klerk and the Natonal Party.. On January 15 Neison Mandela, President of the ANC, said that he had to keep De Klerk in power. De Klerk is occantia for the negotiating process.
Whether we Eke it or not, he is the de facto government of this country. We cannot normalise our political stuation without his cooperation. it is our duty that De Klerk remains in power so that we can cocoerate on trying to bring about a new South This was of course in complete contradiction to Mandela's address to the ANC's 80th anniversary colbraHere he warned that De Klerk did not share the ANd's objective of a democratic "by December of this year.
It is this sort of double-speak, which has been characteristic of Mandela's tpe of leadership. which makes Neville Alexander, chairperson of the Workers' viganisaton tor SocialsI Action (WOSA) ask 'Are the negotiators collaborators In the same article he points out that the proposed interim government in which the ANC would participate alongside the National Party and Inkatha would compromise the struggle for the Constituent Assembly, to which the ANC is still committed in its programme. of the ANC leadership that CODESA is a milestone along the ultimate goal, or as the ANC General Secretary Cyril Ramaphosa put it We are walking the last mile.
Indeed Alexander points out that Ramaphosa's freudian slip may turn out to be more significant than he realises. in normal slang walking the last mile cofers to the last few steps which the condemned person takes on the way to the gallows of the electric chair.
Putting WOSA's point of view. he amonasses the Constituent As. sembly is our bottom line. We are probably not yet in a position to compei the government of the day to yield to the peoples' demand... We in WOSA and in other organisations insist that the struggle continues. A lutta continua. We are not prepared... con our peopie into believing that CODESA is a part of the struggle.
Indeed the CODESA process if loft to itselt will become the shortest route to burying the struggle for years to come. The critical question is, are the iberators? Things will be clear in the next few months.
The testing time has come even more swity than Neville Alexander anticipated. De Klerk has put his cards on the table. He is for the perpetuation make up his mind. Is he for Do Klerk? Does he still consider it his duty that De Klerk remains in power?
The people of South Africa, the victims of four centunes a white comin tion and the obscenity which was they want it now!
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