South Africa Kicking Up a Seaside Sandstorm

By Peter Hawthorne/Durban

As the first chill of winter swept across South Africa last week, a few white families braved the weather to relax on King's Beach, a strip along the Indian Ocean in the eastern Cape city of Port Elizabeth. Parents reclined under striped umbrellas as black maids took the children to play in the waves. Not far away, a colored (mixed race) man, his wife and two small children enjoyed a picnic on the sand. For a brief time last month, such racially mixed scenes were countenanced by law at Port Elizabeth, after the state Supreme Court struck down local city ordinances that reserved beaches like King's for whites only. But as the Pretoria government appealed the decision, apartheid once again ruled the seashore: thus last week's black and colored beachgoers were outside the law.

Farther north, in Durban, a leading coastal resort, Mayor Henry Klotz was pondering his status as an outcast from President P.W. Botha's National Party. Last month Klotz balked when party colleagues on the city council reserved two of Durban's best beaches for whites only. The beaches were the scene of confrontations between blacks and whites last summer. After his refusal to endorse the segregation plan, Klotz was suspended for "acting disloyally and contrary to the interests" of the party. Declaring that he was "duty bound to act in the interests of all the citizens," the mayor resigned his membership.

At a time when the government holds an estimated 3,000 antiapartheid activists in detention, seaside segregation represents but a small facet of local life. Nonetheless, government efforts in support of whites-only bathing are generating skepticism about President Botha's proclaimed intentions to reform the political system. Editorialized the Johannesburg Sunday Star: "It is almost impossible for the most moderate black, colored and Indian leaders to offer their services in seeking a negotiated constitution when Mr. Botha's men are fighting to keep them and those whom they lead off the beaches, off white land, out of white group areas and the best schools."

The Port Elizabeth court decision grew out of a 1987 incident in which the Rev. Allan Hendrickse, head of the opposition Labor Party and a member of the Botha Cabinet, took a dip at King's Beach. His action drew a strong rebuke from President Botha, who threatened to drop him from the Cabinet, dissolve Parliament and call a general election unless Hendrickse apologized. Hendrickse backed down, but two Port Elizabeth city councilors fought the restrictive beach ordinance up to the Supreme Court. The stricture was ruled invalid on a technicality, and Hendrickse announced that he was prepared to test the waters at other whites-only beaches.

The issue has provoked a backlash among white residents on the Natal and eastern Cape coasts. Many are supporting the rightist Conservative Party, which now forms the official opposition in the whites-only legislative House of Assembly. To buttress their case that segregation must be maintained in traditionally white bathing areas, the Conservatives point to "uncivilized" behavior by blacks, including topless bathing by black women, a practice that is anathema to many whites.

There is little doubt that last summer's clashes on Durban beaches helped the Conservatives win three parliamentary by-elections in the Transvaal in March. That in turn explains the Botha government's combative attitude -- part of a competition for white votes that will intensify prior to countrywide local elections slated for October. Coincidentally, that is when South Africa | moves into summer, and the beaches are packed with humanity.