Breakthrough

WITH MORE THAN 3,000 POLITICAL DEATHS, 1992 was one of the bloodiest years in South African history -- bloody enough so that the threat of more violence and economic ruin has finally brought politicians to their senses. Seven months after negotiations collapsed, the African National Congress approved a compromise with President F.W. de Klerk's National Party that would establish a government with a guaranteed white minority for up to five years. Says A.N.C. Secretary General Cyril Ramaphosa: "This is the proposal that will break the deadlock."

If the plan is approved by all major parties when full-scale negotiations resume in March, the first free elections will be held by early 1994, when A.N.C. leader Nelson Mandela will probably replace De Klerk as President of South Africa. The deal, under which the A.N.C. will call for an end to international sanctions, involves significant concessions from both sides. A < unity government including De Klerk's party would delay pure majority rule for the A.N.C. until 1999. But De Klerk's party in turn has abandoned its dream of writing a scheme for permanent power sharing into the new constitution.