South Africa’s Credibility Is at Stake : President De Klerk has to do better if he wants to be trusted

Is South African President Frederik W. de Klerk a man of integrity? He must prove that he is. He must respond more forcibly to shocking revelations of a covert government fund used to stoke the political and violent feud between the venerable African National Congress and the nascent Inkatha Freedom Party.

The ANC, black ministers and human rights advocates had charged repeatedly that the white government and the powerful security forces have played favorites. Those allegations have been denied repeatedly, but now there is proof. De Klerk’s regime secretly funneled more than $600,000 to Inkatha, which is run by the conservative Zulu Chief Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi, and to its affiliated trade union.

In response to these revelations, De Klerk has demoted, but not fired, two hard-liners--Defense Minister Magnus Malan and Law and Order Minister Adriaan Vlok. But they have shown they are roadblocks to a new South Africa--why keep them in the Cabinet?

De Klerk insists that the government is stopping “all special secret projects” directed at political organizations. That promise is reassuring on its face, but who will monitor it in a nation where the majority can neither vote nor hold office? Will the advisory committee that De Klerk promises to appoint from the private sector be racially and politically diverse?

In an address to the nation Tuesday, De Klerk unfortunately tried to defend the indefensible. He blamed the covert funding on the government’s need to fight foreign sanctions--and to oppose the ANC’s embrace of violence, renounced only a year ago. He did admit that government defense officials had trained Buthelezi’s KwaZulu Police Force and 150 Zulus “with a view to security and VIP protection.” Whose security? Certainly not anyone who challenged Buthelezi or his followers. In his speech, De Klerk also pointed out that he had redefined the role of the security forces in January, 1990. But will that redefinition require absolute political impartiality?

De Klerk deserves credit for the many reforms he has encouraged since he became president nearly two years ago. He can claim numerous legislative victories in Parliament, including the repeal of the legal pillars of apartheid. But the revelations of secret funding give credence to additional damaging charges levied by the ANC. An editorial in the Johannesburg Star posed a tough question: “If this kind of corrupt meddling is permissible, then who would dare argue that the political massacres that have been attributed to Inkatha could not have been sponsored by state sources too?”

De Klerk and his government cannot be both referee and player in the negotiations. To re-establish his credibility and his integrity, De Klerk must renounce the covert financing completely and come clean.