I sense a growing realization that a valid political system here must be one that correlates with the demographics of the country -- not merely black participation or black cooperation, but a government which truly represents the majority of South Africans.
Strip away the diplomatic jargon and that statement is pure dynamite. Its author? U.S. Ambassador Edward J. Perkins, writing in the influential South African bimonthly Leadership, whose latest issue appeared last week. The U.S. State Department insisted that it was entirely consistent with previously stated U.S. policy condemning the South African practice of racial apartheid. As departmental officials noted, Secretary of State George Shultz in a September speech called for a "universal franchise for all adult South Africans," which by implication assumes eventual black rule. But Perkins' article was nonetheless viewed by some observers as a breakthrough, if only in his reference to the word majority, a term usually shunned in deference to white fears of one day being overwhelmed by blacks. Said the Rev. Allan Boesak, a leading opponent of apartheid: "No one in his position has said that for years." On the other hand, Pretoria declared its "grave dissatisfaction" with the Perkins piece.
Deliberately provocative or not, the Leadership article was the latest step in a closely watched diplomatic performance. As a black representing a conservative Republican Administration in white-ruled South Africa, Perkins received a generally negative reception when he landed in Pretoria late last year after spending eight years dealing with black African affairs for the State Department. His appointment was regarded by many whites as a symbolic snub and by blacks as insulting tokenism. Perkins has responded by cultivating a low profile, then discarding it at strategic intervals to issue carefully chosen shots.
Perkins, 58, routinely declines press interviews, and has not discussed the article. But in his occasional speeches to civic and business groups, he loyally follows the Administration's policy of discouraging U.S. firms from closing down or selling off their South African operations to protest apartheid. In a speech while on home leave last spring, however, he said the economic sanctions passed by Congress in 1986, in making "a statement of abhorrence by the American people of a hated system," had been a success.
That assertion served to break the ice with several black leaders, including Boesak. But the diplomat has also established a wide network of contacts among ordinary blacks during unpublicized visits to squatter camps and churches throughout the country. "After a while we were struck by his obvious concern for South Africa's blacks," says Dr. Nthato Motlana, chairman of the Civic Association in the black township of Soweto. "And we realized that he had lived through the kind of trauma that we're going through."
Perkins' one act of overt protest against Pretoria has been to attend a Cape Town church service convened to denounce a ban on appeals for the release of detainees, many of them children, held without charge for security reasons. Invited with other envoys by the foreign ministry to a stern lecture on the need for law-and-order, the ambassador, as usual, had no comment. As with his silence on last week's article about South Africa's future, he had already made his statement.