Never, Never, Never

By SCOTT MACLEOD /JOHANNESBURG

Major General P.H. ("Tienie") Groenewald, retired chief of military intelligence, has only contempt for the President he calls "the biggest traitor we have ever had." For 35 years Groenewald was a faithful servant of the state, fighting apartheid's war against the revolutionaries of the African National Congress. Now, thanks to the concessionary policies of F.W. de Klerk, his enemy is the government itself, likely to be taken over soon by the leaders of the A.N.C. "For the first time, we really realize that we are in trouble," he said. "De Klerk and the A.N.C. have said, 'Unless you accept the path plotted by us, we will ignore you.' This is what annoys us. We will not be ignored."

In the past month, as a political settlement ending decades of apartheid has inched within reach, Afrikaner and other militants have stepped up their resistance to the prospect of black majority rule. This is no mere wagon- circling exercise. This month a member of the neofascist Afrikaner Resistance Movement will stand trial for the April assassination of Chris Hani, leader of the South African Communist Party and a popular top official of the A.N.C. Two prominent right-wing Conservative Party officials will be tried as co-conspirators in the murder. Meanwhile, Groenewald and three other former generals have come out of retirement to form a coalition of right-wing groups, the Afrikaner Volksfront.

South Africans have often been tempted to laugh off the far right as characters out of a comic opera. No longer. Rather than bowing grudgingly to the inevitable, many Afrikaners have grown more desperate. The militants are threatening to employ the same revolutionary tactics once practiced by black liberation groups: civil disobedience and guerrilla warfare. In the worst-case scenario, the result could be an all-out race conflict. "If they want war, let them start war," retorted a black caller to the Citizen, a conservative Johannesburg newspaper. "We are longing for it."

The diehard right is alarmed at the very real prospect that in the coming month the government and the A.N.C. will reach a landmark accord. This week negotiators from 26 parties are expected to set the long-awaited date for South Africa's first free nonracial elections. That poll, expected to take place by next April, could elect Mandela President in a government of national unity. The Transitional Executive Council, the first stage of nonracial interim government, could be in place within the next few months.

The so-called Committee of Generals, made up of recently retired hard-liners from the South African Defense Force and police, is not about to let that transition happen. Their bid to unite feuding right-wing groups -- three parties and as many as 179 paramilitary and cultural organizations -- has brought together conservative white farmers, Afrikaners trying to preserve their cultural heritage, English-speaking racists and out-and-out fascists.

Groenewald says the Volksfront's purpose is to back up demands in the current negotiations for an independent white state comprising about 16% of South Africa's territory. It would correspond roughly to the old Boer republics of the Transvaal and Orange Free State, which became part of the Union of South Africa in 1910. Neither De Klerk nor Mandela will accept such a state, since it would require the forced removal of millions of blacks or a return to apartheid-style discrimination against them.

Initially the Volksfront will employ mass-action tactics such as protest marches and labor strikes led by white unions. If the main parties persist in forming a transitional government, warned Groenewald, that could force whites to secede from South Africa. He refused to rule out leading an insurrection. It is an open question, he added, whether white-led government security forces would obey orders to suppress a white rebellion. That prospect worries many. Last week De Klerk acknowledged that he was only informed after the fact when the police cracked down on the militant Pan Africanist Congress and arrested 73 of its leaders. This move nearly threw negotiations off course again.

Despite the threats, it is far from clear how many whites could be mobilized to fight a new Boer war. Experts estimate that committed right-wing paramilitary activists may number no more than 5,000. Many members of the Conservative Party, which opposes reforms, would probably quit if leaders advocated violence, especially if a political settlement gave assurances that white as well as black ethnic groups could maintain control over their language, religion and customs. That might leave only a handful of diehards to initiate an Irish Republican Army-style terror campaign.

Barring some dramatic turn of events, time for the far right is running out. The setting of an election date should significantly strengthen the country's < growing political center. With progress like that, the diehards may be no match for the majority of South Africans, including most whites, who want to put apartheid -- and conflict -- behind them.