South Africa New Twist to an Old Plot

By JANICE C. SIMPSON

The announcement should have been an occasion for joy. For months, antiapartheid activists and foreign governments, local business leaders and international bankers have pressed State President P.W. Botha to end the state of emergency that he imposed last July 21. Last week, declaring that the level of violence that provoked the restrictions had "improved," Botha did so.

There was, however, little jubilation at the measure. The government's sincerity about easing restrictions immediately came into question when it ordered three CBS newsmen expelled from the country the same day. The charge: "flagrant contempt" of a court order banning the presence of television cameras at a mass funeral for 17 of the 23 blacks killed during four days of violence in the black township of Alexandra, outside of Johannesburg. The evictions, said CBS Johannesburg Bureau Manager William Mutschmann, one of the three newsmen, would "severely curtail CBS's ability to cover the South African story."

Botha's commitment to cutting back the tight security measures that have seriously polarized his country seemed even less assured. Before the government released more than 300 detainees still held under the emergency provisions, he said he would seek new legislation that would "enable the authorities to deal with continued incidents of unrest." The State President also set an Aug. 1 deadline to begin implementation of a United Nations independence plan for the South Africa-controlled territory of South West Africa, or Namibia. Botha made it clear, however, that the plan is still contingent on the withdrawal of Cuban troops from Angola.

Nonetheless, many white South Africans hailed the decision to lift the emergency decree as a conciliatory move on the part of the government. It was, said Johan Wilson, president of the Federated Chamber of Industries, "a further concrete step to normalize the situation inside South Africa by reducing tensions in the townships and on the factory floor." The Reagan Administration also welcomed the action. Said White House Spokesman Larry Speakes: "We have long urged that the state of emergency be lifted as one of the steps the South African government must take to create conditions in which it would be possible to begin negotiations with credible black leaders, leading to meaningful reform and a reduction in violence."

South Africa's black leaders were less sanguine. While welcoming the end of the emergency, they warned that without substantive changes in the system, lifting the decree would do little to reduce tensions. "Political adversaries will continue to be detained, banned and harassed, and township communities will continue to suffer from the depredations of the security forces," said the Detainees' Parents Support Committee. "It now seems that we are about to enter an era of intensified political repression through supercharged security legislation that will confer permanent emergency powers."

South Africa has suffered 18 months of riots and other violent protests, during which a total of some 1,200 people have died. The unrest began after the Botha government pushed through constitutional changes that created separate legislative chambers for whites, coloreds and Indians, while excluding blacks. Police and other security forces, who already enjoyed ample authority to conduct arbitrary searches, seizures and arrests under the country's normally severe security laws, were granted even more extensive powers. Nearly 8,000 people, about 2,000 of them under the age of 16, were arrested under these emergency provisions.

The turmoil intensified. Seven months after the state of emergency was imposed, the number of people killed in racial violence, most of them black, doubled, to more than 700, from the approximately 300 who died in the seven months before the decree went into effect. The rising death toll only deepened the determination, particularly among young blacks, to continue the struggle for full enfranchisement. It also revived support for the African National Congress, the outlawed organization that seeks to overthrow the white minority government.

Meanwhile, police engaged last week in a shoot-out with black militants on a road outside Cape Town. Officials said security officers mounted an ambush after informers told them that the men were A.N.C. guerrillas who planned to attack the police station in Guguletu, a black township near Cape Town. Seven A.N.C. militants were killed, but their presence near South Africa's southernmost city, far from the northern border area where the A.N.C. has been most active, is evidence that the group's 24-year-old insurgency campaign has become more aggressive. Indeed, sporadic bursts of violence erupted throughout the country last week. Among the most dramatic: a bomb explosion in a toilet at the main police station in Johannesburg where security suspects are interrogated.

The state-of-emergency provisions have been more successful in limiting press coverage. Charging that the presence of cameras and tape recorders incited violence in the townships and conveyed negative images to the outside world, the government banned such equipment from emergency areas and required reporters to request permission to enter these zones. The press was permitted to cover the Alexandra funeral, which was attended by several leading activists, including Winnie Mandela, wife of jailed A.N.C. Spiritual Leader Nelson Mandela, but cameras were still prohibited. The CBS journalists say they will appeal their expulsion. But even if they are allowed to stay, it seems clear that the press will continue to labor under emergency-style restrictions. So, too, will the rest of the country.

With reporting by Bruce W. Nelan/Johannesburg