South Africa "Terrifying Indictment"

When the South African Parliament reconvened in Cape Town last week after a two-month recess, the government of State President P.W. Botha was expected to offer a bill to set up a national council of blacks and whites that would advise him on social and political matters. Though the council's recommendations would not be legally binding, its creation was supposed to be a conciliatory gesture to the country's 24 million voteless blacks. As it turned out, the government was not ready to offer such a bill, and there was speculation that Botha had decided not to do so until he received private assurances from black leaders that they would be willing to serve on the council. So far, apparently none have agreed to do so.

Instead of the goodwill gesture, the government released a list of 8,551 people who have been arrested since the current state of emergency was declared on June 12. Some critics claimed that the real number of detainees was closer to 12,000, but the official figure was high enough to prompt an outcry from the small parliamentary opposition. The list, declared the Progressive Federal Party's Helen Suzman, was a "terrifying indictment of the government's inability to maintain law-and-order."

In the meantime, following a legal challenge by the country's leading English-language newspapers, the government conceded that two of its emergency orders concerning the press had been promulgated improperly, and were therefore invalid. One order forbade the press to cover actions of the security forces, and the other banned journalists from black residential areas. The directives were thrown out by the court because the government had failed to announce them in the official gazette or by public proclamation, but had simply dispatched them by telex to the South African Press Association. The government can still put the measures into effect whenever it chooses by following the prescribed procedures.

As time passes, the chance of racial compromise seems to be getting slimmer. Scarcely two months ago Western leaders still hoped to persuade Botha to release Black Leader Nelson Mandela, who has been in prison for 24 years. Now some Afrikaners are agitating for the arrest of Bishop Desmond Tutu, the Nobel peace laureate who is due to be installed on Sept. 7 as Archbishop of Cape Town and head of the Anglican Church in southern Africa. Two weeks ago Manpower Minister Pieter du Plessis gave Tutu a "friendly warning" that his calls for sanctions against South Africa "border on high treason." Last week Andries Treurnicht, head of the far-right Conservative Party, joined the chorus by demanding that Tutu be "dealt with immediately."