South Africa Eyeball to Eyeball

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Reagan's veto was supported by some American allies but criticized by others. Like West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was sympathetic to the President's action because she too disapproves of sanctions. The British were enthusiastic about sending Shultz to southern Africa and urged that he meet with Oliver Tambo, president of the outlawed African National Congress, South Africa's leading black political movement. Chester Crocker, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, met with Tambo two weeks ago in London. Other countries, in the meantime, were stepping up their support of sanctions. Canada announced that it would henceforth ban South African farm products, uranium, coal, iron and steel in keeping with a Commonwealth agreement reached last month.

In Pretoria the government had been getting ready for bad news from Washington for more than a week. Foreign Minister Roelof ("Pik") Botha repeated the conventional argument that if the congressional bill survives the Reagan veto, "it will have a damaging effect on the jobs of many people, black and white. It will harm us, but it will not kill us."

Racially motivated violence, in the meantime, showed no sign of ending, as evidenced by a bombing in a Johannesburg hotel and continued unrest in the townships. Two memorial services were held for the 177 miners who died in the Kinross gold-mine disaster a fortnight ago. On a soccer field near the scene of the accident, where 3,000 miners had assembled for the ceremony, several hundred black protesters surrounded the pulpit. One man, a steward of the black National Union of Mineworkers, shouted through a handheld loudspeaker, "We are not going to pray with whites today. We've never been allowed to pray with whites. We'll have our own rites." Soon the field was filled with marching miners, who were joined by hundreds of people from the stands. The ministers leading the service ignored the disturbance and went on with their prayers until the brief ceremony was over. At that point demonstrators charged the refreshment tables and knocked over the flower-draped pulpit. To no avail, a union steward shouted, "Comrades, stop! Please, comrades!"

Two days later 5,000 miners assembled in a stadium a few miles away for a ; second service. Cyril Ramaphosa, general secretary of the big miners' union, explained that it was a response to the earlier ceremony, which had been organized by people "who murdered 177 of our comrades." A great cry of "Viva Winnie Mandela!" echoed through the stadium as the wife of Nelson Mandela, the long-imprisoned black leader, arrived. "We accept that the time for talking has come to an end," she told the workers. "The moment you stop digging (Pretoria's) gold and diamonds, we will be free." Union leaders have asked miners to stay away from the pits this Wednesday as a gesture of protest and mourning.