South Africa An Unlikely Tea for Two

By Bruce W. Nelan

A mere hour's drive separates the prison farm where Nelson Mandela is being held and State President P.W. Botha's white-pillared residence in Cape Town. But the political distance between those two men has always seemed unbridgeable. They have personified the country's racial stalemate: Mandela, who turns 71 this week, insisted that he would make no deals with the white government while he remained a prisoner; Botha, 73, vowed that he would never free the symbolic leader of the nation's black majority unless Mandela forswore the use of violence.

To the astonishment of black and white South Africans, the government disclosed last week that the chasm may not be as impossibly wide as once thought. In his 27th year of imprisonment, serving a life sentence for sabotage, Mandela accepted an invitation from Botha to meet face to face for the first time. The two adversaries spent 45 minutes on July 5 talking "in a pleasant spirit" and sipping tea. It was not a negotiation, said Justice Minister Kobie Coetsee, who also participated, but the two foes confirmed "their support for peaceful development in South Africa." By agreeing to that, Mandela seemed to qualify for admission to negotiations with the government under a new formulation from the ruling National Party welcoming all "people who have a commitment to peace" to join in efforts to draft a new constitution that would provide a national political role for blacks.

White right wingers called Botha a "traitor" for sitting down with a man they consider a terrorist. White liberals felt confirmed in their belief that Mandela and his organization, the outlawed African National Congress, hold the key to successful negotiations between blacks and whites. But Mandela had not informed the A.N.C., his family or anyone else about the meeting, and black activists were shocked and confused when they learned of it. For years they have refused to consider or tolerate any contact with the government, demanding that it first release Mandela, legalize the A.N.C. and end the state of emergency.

One of the most prominent antiapartheid leaders, the Rev. Frank Chikane, along with Mandela's wife Winnie, quickly called a press conference to dismiss the talks in Cape Town as a "nonevent," an act of "political mischief" staged by Mandela's jailers. In Lusaka, Joe Modise, commander of Spear of the Nation, the guerrilla wing of the A.N.C. that Mandela helped create in 1961, insisted that "only the armed struggle will bring the Boers to negotiations."

Mandela, who has a television and radio in his three-bedroom house at Victor Verster Prison, heard the angry reaction of his supporters. In a statement released last Wednesday, he repeated his conviction that a government "dialogue with the mass democratic movement, and in particular with the African National Congress, is the only way of ending violence and bringing peace." His intention, he told his followers, was "to contribute to the creation of the climate" that would lead to such negotiations. Black leaders immediately began downplaying their resentment, and Chikane retreated. "I welcome Mr. Mandela's commitment" to creating such a climate, he said.

Though Mandela holds no official position in the A.N.C., he has proved that even in prison he is the leader to reckon with. Nor should there be much surprise at this: he has always been more realistic and flexible than A.N.C. leaders in exile or such internal antiapartheid coalitions as the United Democratic Front and the Congress of South African Trade Unions. In interviews granted to occasional VIP visitors to his cell, he conceded that white fears of domination must be taken into account in designing a black majority government -- something A.N.C. policy rejects. He has also maintained warm relations with Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi, head of the Zulu-based Inkatha organization, which is fighting a bloody war against A.N.C. and U.D.F. supporters. His wish, Mandela recently wrote Buthelezi, is to unify all the black movements.

After recovering from tuberculosis last year, Mandela apparently concluded that he had to try to get negotiations going before his time ran out, and agreed to meet Botha. He talked secretly over several months with at least four Cabinet ministers, and would have seen Botha much earlier if the President had not suffered a stroke last January. Botha, the man who told his white countrymen in 1979 that they had to "adapt or die," seemed determined to begin the process before he retires next September. By arranging the meeting, says Cape Town University Professor David Welsh, Botha acknowledged both Mandela and the A.N.C. as significant "players" in the search for a political settlement.

For all the confusion it caused, the Mandela-Botha meeting answers some long-standing questions. There can be no doubt now that the government's improved treatment of Mandela, which began when he was hospitalized a year ago, will lead to his eventual release. It could come just after the Sept. 6 parliamentary elections, so that Botha can claim credit for the step before handing over the presidency to the new National Party leader, F.W. de Klerk. Similarly, it seems inevitable that the A.N.C., which the government still classifies as a terrorist organization, will be included in future negotiations. It is a testament to his leadership abilities that Mandela has already led his reluctant followers into talks about talks.

With reporting by Peter Hawthorne/Cape Town