S. Africa Plans to Ease Harsh Security Laws

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — Calling political suppression “irrevocably a thing of the past,” President Frederik W. de Klerk announced plans Thursday to scrap most of South Africa’s notorious Internal Security Act, which gives police broad powers to detain and silence anti-apartheid activists.

“The suppression of the right of any party to state its case democratically in an orderly manner is not acceptable to the government,” De Klerk told Parliament in Cape Town. Some security laws will remain, the president added, but “those elements which impinge on the democratic process” will be removed.

The move went most of the way toward meeting a longstanding demand of the African National Congress, the primary black opposition group, for the removal of security laws.

But the ANC still has threatened to pull out of power-sharing talks with the government if De Klerk does not take steps, by next Thursday, to end escalating township factional violence, which has claimed 100 lives in South Africa in the last week.

The recent bloodshed has centered in Soweto, the sprawling township of 2.5 million outside Johannesburg, where 37 people died after May Day rallies Wednesday in clashes between armed bands from the ANC and the rival Zulu-dominated Inkatha Freedom Party.

Hundreds of women and children fled their homes Thursday, and Winnie Mandela, in a visit to the strife-torn area, warned that the country is heading for a tragedy if the violence is allowed to continue.

Most of the fighting has occurred at migrant worker hostels that house Inkatha-supporting Zulu laborers from Natal province. Police said late Thursday night that local ANC and Inkatha leaders have agreed to a cease-fire, and Soweto was quiet.

In a wide-ranging speech, President De Klerk said a government-sponsored multi-party conference on violence, scheduled for later this month, and his new “standing commission on violence and intimidation” add up to a comprehensive plan to combat township unrest.

However, the ANC, which has refused to attend the conference, has demanded that De Klerk take stronger actions, including firing his ministers of defense and of law and order.

For nearly 30 years, the Internal Security Act and its legal predecessors have been used widely by the white-dominated government to stifle its anti-apartheid critics. Under the act, tens of thousands of activists have been detained for months without trial, their words and photographs have been banned and some of them, such as Winnie Mandela, wife of ANC Deputy President Nelson Mandela, have been banished to remote villages.

De Klerk said he will scrap provisions that allow police to detain a person indefinitely, and without legal appeal, if they believe the person is likely to commit a security offense. The president also said he will get rid of the “consolidated list,” which has been used extensively to restrict activists from being quoted, holding parliamentary office or practicing law.

Also to be erased are statutes that allow the government to ban publications and require radical newspapers and magazines to register with the government and pay a $16,000 deposit.

In addition, De Klerk said he will “amend drastically” the notorious Section 29 of the Internal Security Act, which allows police to detain activists indefinitely for interrogation “until all questions are satisfactorily answered.” He said amendments also will be made to laws allowing the government to declare certain organizations illegal.

But De Klerk did not mention any plans to restrict the powers of police, under the act, to ban--and forcibly disperse--any political gathering deemed a threat to public safety.

Of the more than 24,000 activists detained under the Internal Security Act over the years, fewer than one-fourth were ever charged with a crime, and only 3% were convicted, according to human rights groups.

Police have contended that Section 29 is an invaluable investigative tool because it allows them to yank suspected terrorists out of society while they build a case that will hold up in court. It has been used in recent months to detain right-wing white extremists as well as left-wing activists.

But the provision has been criticized by the ANC and right-wing groups. They say police have used the law to extract information by isolating and disorienting detainees.

In the worst cases, it has been used to torture confessions out of activists. More than 60 people have died in detention over the years, including such anti-apartheid luminaries as black-consciousness leader Steve Biko in 1977. Two activists died in detention last year.

Meanwhile, political prisoners in South Africa went on a hunger strike this week to protest their continued incarceration. The government had agreed in August to release all political prisoners by last Tuesday. It has freed nearly 1,000 prisoners, but an estimated 200 remain behind bars.

De Klerk said the process of identifying political prisoners is continuing, but a battle looms between the government and the ANC over several dozen prisoners who have been convicted of murder and other serious crimes.

The ANC believes those prisoners qualify for release, but De Klerk already has turned down the applications of several soldiers of the ANC’s military wing who were convicted in the bombing deaths of civilians. Under the political prisoner agreement, those and similar cases now will be referred to a joint government-ANC panel, which will make recommendations to De Klerk.