A Relic of Apartheid Falls

By JANICE C. SIMPSON

After months of halting, halfhearted gestures toward racial reform, South Africa last week finally took a step that may significantly alter its detested system of apartheid. The government announced proposals to abolish the pass laws, a complex web of 34 regulations and proclamations that have severely restricted the ability of blacks to move freely within the country. The laws, said an official white paper announcing the reform, are a "relic of the past" and will be replaced by a non-discriminatory program of "planned, positive urbanization." Declared State President P.W. Botha: "Today we have arrived at the emancipation from guardianship of the black and the brown and the rejection of the colonial domination of the past."

Under the new policy, blacks will no longer be required to carry passbooks that stipulate where they can live, work and travel. Parliament, which is dominated by Botha's National Party, still must approve the new proposals. But in a gesture of goodwill, Pretoria released 245 blacks who had been imprisoned for pass-law offenses. The hated passbooks will be replaced with identification cards issued to all South Africans over 16 years of age. Although the new documents will indicate the bearer's race, no one will be penalized for failure to carry them.

In Washington, the Reagan Administration hailed the proposed reforms as a "major milestone on the road away from apartheid." But public reaction inside South Africa was mixed. Business groups and other moderates cheered the news. The government's actions, said John Kane-Berman, director of the antiapartheid South African Institute of Race Relations, rank along with the legalization of black trade unions in 1979 as "the most important reform in South Africa since World War II." Many black activists, on the other hand, viewed the measure--welcome as it is--as too little, too late. "Apartheid cannot be reformed," says Patrick Lephunya, a spokesman for the United Democratic Front, the umbrella organization for some 600 antiapartheid groups. "It must be eradicated."

The sweeping decision to repeal the patchwork of influx laws comes after the country has endured 20 months of violent protest against apartheid in which nearly 1,500 people, most of them black, have been killed. Had the reform come earlier, it might have been hailed more widely as an attempt at peacefully easing the country's racial difficulties. Indeed, the proposed changes fall far short of now clamorous black demands for full political representation. Nor do they threaten the legally enshrined principles of racial segregation, which include separate schools and residential areas for different racial groups. All this prompted some critics to question the depth of the government's commitment to change. Warned Archbishop-elect Desmond Tutu of Cape Town, the 1984 Nobel laureate and outspoken critic of the government's policies: Blacks must "be aware of the small print. Some form of influx control may be brought in through the back door." Tutu's concerns were further aggravated later in the week when security officials detained his antiapartheid colleague Bishop Sigisbert Ndwandwe, a black, charging him with inciting public violence.

Nonetheless, the reform measures will have considerable impact on the country's 24 million blacks, who make up 73% of the population. The pass laws were stitched together in piecemeal fashion over the past 70 years in an effort to control the flow of blacks into the country's predominantly white cities. Repealing them, observed the Sowetan, the major newspaper in the large black township outside of Johannesburg, will "affect the person who matters most--the man in the street." Under the old system, the government refused to recognize blacks as citizens of South Africa, pretending instead that they were "sojourners" from the ten artificially created, all-black territories known as homelands. Those living or working within South Africa needed special permission to do so and were required to show their permit documents on demand or risk being fined and imprisoned. Now they may travel freely in South Africa as permanent, legal citizens.

The government also renewed its promise to end a controversial program that has forcibly relocated some 3.5 million blacks to the homelands in the past 25 years. For the moment, the 8 million blacks who live in the four homelands that have accepted independent status from Pretoria--Transkei, Venda, Bophuthatswana and Ciskei--will still be considered foreign nationals. They are expected to receive dual citizenship by the end of the year. Other blacks living in rural areas are basically free to seek jobs in cities whenever they choose, although they remain barred from residing in areas reserved for whites. That worries some white South Africans, who fear that more black migration to urban areas could result in higher unemployment, crime and, inevitably, greater racial unrest.

In an apparent effort to allay white fears, the government proposed a new public-safety amendment to widen the extensive powers of the police in controlling political unrest. The new measure will give Law-and-Order Minister Louis Le Grange the authority, currently reserved for the President, to declare a state of emergency in troubled areas. At the same time, Pretoria has promised to ease construction regulations and make more land available for black housing.

It seems unlikely, however, that the proposed reforms will do much to quell the seething discontent in the country's black townships. Indeed, even as Botha delivered his brotherhood message last week, there were yet more tragic indications that the wounds inflicted by apartheid will be difficult to heal. During one 24-hour period, 60 homes were fire-bombed and 30 private cars and police vehicles were damaged as police tried to control a clash between militant youths and vigilante squads in the township of Alexandra, near Johannesburg. --By Janice C. Simpson. Reported by Bruce W. Nelan/Johannesburg

With reporting by Bruce W. Nelan/Johannesburg