Before writing his letter criticising SO's position on the all-white referendum in South Africa (SO April 17), Michael Wippell should have asked himself who has benefitted from the result - the liberation movement or De Klerk and the white establishment?
What is quite clear is that De Klerk, with an almost united white population behind him, is now in a stronger position in his negotiations with the ANC and the other organisations in CODESA.
Two days after De Klerk hailed his victory with the state ment that this heralded the end of apartheid (again!), his udget which maintained the differentials in pensions for the still officially designated four racial groups, with the black majority, as always, at the end of the queue.
A weck after the referendum, the government announced that it was going to tions and tabled diluted power-snanny with the black majority. Far from moving toward the Con stituent Assembly demanded by the liberation movement, the at the its latest proposals for an interim administraton De Klerk was honouring his promises to the white electorate No. 21 national capitalism, despite the expressed request by Mandela and the ANC that sanctions should not be lifted until the constitutional issues had been settled. The culmination of this vas the red carpet reception for De Klerk in Nigeria - a visit which took without the approval of the ANC his is of particular sig nificance because historically Nigeria has been one of blad Africa's most implacable o ponents of white minority rule And Nigeria's president, Ibrahim Babangida, is the cur rent president of the Organisaton or Alcan Unity.
Meanwhile the massacre of black people in the townships of Natal and the Rand continue-a usert wes pon i the propagan da armour of the government -black organbanon waken carnot control their supt obviously not fit to take over the rule of the state!
Charlie van Gelderen.
Cambridge May 16, 1992