South Africa Politics

South African President F. W. de Klerk's revelation Wednesday that South Africa built, then destroyed, nuclear weapons is a stark measure of the changes in the Horn of Africa. The announcement arrives in a political climate where revolution through the ballot box may come in a year's time, and where De Klerk must dramatize a new openness to the Western industrial powers the country is so dependent upon.

Christopher Sadiki is convinced that Jacob Zuma, the president-in-waiting for the ruling African National Congress, is guilty of corruption. But that won't stop the 21-year-old from choosing the ANC when he votes for the first time this week. "Corruption is everywhere," he said, shrugging. "They're all corrupt." And don't ask him about the opposition -- he doesn't want to know. "I don't support them. I don't know anything about them.

ON and off screen, Mark Bamford and Suzanne Kay find themselves battling stereotypes about South Africa. Their new movie, "Cape of Good Hope," is not at all what might be expected from a film set in a country once bitterly divided by race: The comedy-drama follows the intertwined lives of several characters, including a woman who rescues dogs, a widowed veterinarian and a Muslim couple eager to have children.

More than five years ago, as a newly arrived correspondent, I learned an important lesson from the courageous people of this little township. And now, as I leave, their example gives me hope for South Africa. Oukasie had existed for half a century to tend the rose bushes, work the factory lines, clean the clothes and mind the children for whites in Brits, half a mile away. Trouble was, the whites had suddenly decided that Oukasie was getting too close.

Almost everyone in the know, including President Nelson Mandela, has dismissed as absurd a recent military intelligence report claiming that a host of disgruntled black leaders was plotting to overthrow Mandela's government. For weeks, all eyes in South Africa have been focused on Gen.

Newly inaugurated South African President Thabo Mbeki is well known for protecting his privacy. During a preelection television appearance, he even stonewalled when asked about his taste in music. But Mbeki is an open book compared with his wife, Zanele. The new first lady refuses to grant interviews. Her personal secretary has been instructed not to divulge basic information, such as her age and job history.

A few blocks from where President Frederik W. de Klerk delivered his speech to Parliament on Friday, a young activist, microphone in hand and perspiring in the summer sun, was raising his voice at an anti-apartheid rally with the demand that has been heard for decades at gatherings like this in South Africa. "We demand that De Klerk unban the African National Congress and the South African Communist Party!" the man proclaimed to cheers from the crowd.

The contrast and complexity of South Africa firmly hit home for Whoopi Goldberg after one particularly long day in Soweto, the hometown of 2 million blacks where she was shooting scenes for the film "Sarafina!" Goldberg was whisked from the township of chickens and dust and squatter shacks to a $10-million house just 20 minutes away, where she was feted at a reception by African National Congress President Nelson Mandela.

Zulu leader Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi said Nelson Mandela's African National Congress is seeking monopolistic power as the white National Party is giving it up. "We do not want any future head of state of South Africa to have the kind of power that (Iraq's) Saddam Hussein has over everything that lives and breathes in his land," Buthelezi told the inaugural conference of his Inkatha Freedom Party. Inkatha supporters and pro-ANC Zulus are in a power struggle that has claimed about 4,000 lives.

A surprise split late last week in this country's official opposition could significantly alter regional politics by thrusting the ruling African National Congress into power in a longtime opposition stronghold and giving it nationwide dominance, analysts said Monday. The New National Party, the successor to the party responsible for apartheid, said Friday that it was suspending its membership in the Democratic Alliance, the country's main political opposition.

In a twist on South Africa's contentious debate over restoring land to landless people, an indigenous community has launched a drive to reclaim what is today some of the country's most valuable real estate. About 60,000 ethnic Khoikhoi of the Goringhaicona tribe, led by paramount chief Calvin Cornelius, want to regain large sections of Cape Town's stunningly beautiful and financially lucrative Victoria and Alfred Waterfront.

Disgraced anti-apartheid activist Allan Boesak, imprisoned last year for fraud and theft, was granted an early release Tuesday, sparking allegations by some prisoners' rights activists of judicial favoritism for the privileged. Boesak was freed from a penitentiary near Cape Town after serving one year of a three-year sentence for stealing $400,000 from charitable donations made to his Foundation for Peace and Justice, including substantial contributions from singer Paul Simon.

President Thabo Mbeki lashed out at South Africa's mainly white and mixed-race opposition party bloc after it made big gains in local elections, calling it an "unholy alliance" that is bad for the nation. Mbeki told a victory rally for the ruling African National Congress, or ANC, in Johannesburg that any headway made by the Democratic Alliance could not discredit the will of the overwhelming majority. But analysts said the outcome signaled an alarming rise in racial divisions.

The political party that created apartheid, imprisoned Nelson Mandela and later negotiated a peaceful transition to black-majority rule in South Africa has called it quits after 86 years, conceding that it cannot go it alone in the racially mixed nation. Leaders of the New National Party confirmed Sunday that they have agreed to a merger with the country's main opposition party, the Democratic Party, under the name Democratic Alliance.

Leaders of the Congress of South African Students, meeting here this week, are pledging to make the Western Cape province "ungovernable." Expect picketing, boycotts, sickouts and strikes in the coming weeks, they warn. Teachers and other trade union groups, who last month led a march on the provincial legislature, are considering further disruptions. Some extremists, according to one report, have even threatened to burn down this city.

The powerful right-wing Conservative Party, after a prolonged internal debate, formally decided Tuesday to urge white voters to oppose reform of apartheid in the nation's historic March 17 referendum. "I call on all white voters to reject (President Frederik W.) de Klerk's reforms with great enthusiasm in his own referendum," declared Conservative Party leader Andries Treurnicht.

In the second major massacre in a week, a Zulu army of more than 200 men cut a swath through this township late Saturday and early Sunday, setting fire to passing cars and gunning down residents in their homes. By dawn Sunday, 30 people in an African National Congress stronghold of Tembisa were dead, including 5-month-old Bathando Ngabayena and his parents, who were executed by men in white headbands who burst into their bedroom and opened fire.

Newly inaugurated South African President Thabo Mbeki is well known for protecting his privacy. During a preelection television appearance, he even stonewalled when asked about his taste in music. But Mbeki is an open book compared with his wife, Zanele. The new first lady refuses to grant interviews. Her personal secretary has been instructed not to divulge basic information, such as her age and job history.

Thabo Mbeki, a child of the struggle against apartheid who was sent into exile 37 years ago to prepare for black majority rule, became this country's second elected black leader Wednesday, replacing retiring President Nelson Mandela. Mbeki took the oath of office in three languages outside the Union Buildings, the seat of government since 1913 and the center of white minority rule until five years ago.