laid upon the Table:

as Chairman, presented the First Report of the Standing Select Committee on Education and Development Aid, dated 27 January 1986, as follows:

Bill to be read a second time.

That this House, when it adjourns on a sitting day preceding a Joint Sitting, adjourn until after the disposal of the business of the Joint Sitting.

Agreed to.

That the Select Committee appointed in 1985 to form part of a Joint Committee to enquire into and report on the subjects of the Family Court Bill, 1985, and the Divorce Amendment Bill, 1985, be reappointed with the same terms of reference.

Agreed to.

That the Select Committee appointed in 1985 to form part of the Joint Committee on Pension Benefits, be reappointed with the same terms of reference.

Agreed to.

Mr Chairman, two matters have served to confuse and to obscure the direction of the no-confidence debate. The first one is the diningroom farce, and I am certainly not going to spend any time on that save to say that it is simply a tragedy that it had to happen at all.

The second matter, however, is much more important. I put it to the House, Mr Chairman, that the ambiguities within the State President’s Opening Speech have obscured this debate. It has enabled, for example, the hon the Minister of National Education to cast the speech in an entirely different light and in strong contrast to the public relations campaign. I hope the State President will still enter this debate, otherwise some of the positive statements which he has made are going to be swept aside by the controversy in relation to what he did say or did not say or what he did mean and what he did not mean.

In that connection, Sir—so as to be fair to the hon the Minister of National Education—I hope that the words of the State President at the Cape congress of the National Party last year are not his last words on the question of education in particular, and the Group Areas Act as well. For myself, Sir, I note that the State President has made it clear that there are some who say, and I quote: “I should have gone further; let them rest assured, I will go further”. I take this to mean that other significant developments and movements are on the cards—shifts which will clarify the direction in which political institutions, educational institutions and residential rights are going to move. Because move they must, Mr Chairman! Otherwise race remains the criterion in the most important institutions in South Africa, and the conflict remains unresolved.

Let me give the House two brief examples in relation to the contradictions to which I am referring.

Firstly, Sir, the hon the Minister of National Education rightly made the point that there were different groups in South Africa, with different ideologies, and that we must seek to encompass all of them. Am I right in my interpretation of what the hon the Minister said? His remedy, his solution to the problem of encompassing all of them lies in doing it on the basis of separation. He does, however, allow for some exceptions, apparently he does. The hon member for Sasolburg, for example, Mr Chairman—and I believe the hon the Minister will agree with me here—is lightyears away from me in his philosophy. He is, however, to be found in the same political institution, and the only reason for this is not to be found in either his ideology or mine but because we both happen to be White.

On the other hand, Mr Chairman, Mr David Curry, who is much closer to many of the more enlightened members of the National Party, is in a separate Chamber—not because of his ideology, not because his views may be diametrically opposed, but because of his colour. [Interjections.] If the hon the Minister can argue against this he must please tell us how he is capable of doing so but I cannot, and I cannot see how he could get off the hook here.

Sir, let me, however, give yet another example. The Government has quite correctly scrapped the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act, and therefore it is perfectly possible for a White MP, should he be single, widowed or divorced, to marry, for example, a Coloured woman. She may also have very strong political views and ambitions. If she ran successfully for Parliament, she would have to be in a separate Chamber from her husband—in other words they can copulate together but they cannot legislate together! [Interjections.]

How would Louis le Grange like to be in that position? [Interjections.] You would have to arrest yourself, Louis! [Interjections.]

The laughter on both sides of the House indicates just how absurd all these matters really are and how they need to be resolved as speedily as possible, Mr Chairman. It indicates the apparent lack of direction and planning and consistency in the Government’s programme. Ad hoc decisions which do not take account of their consequences and which only serve to highlight conflict are counter-productive. If the apartheid building is outmoded, it is no use painting some of the walls or even putting in a few new windows. The building itself must go! The foundation stone—the Population Registration Act—makes a mockery of mere renovations.

Sir, I want to try to put forward an issue on which it appears—to me at least—that this side of the House and the opposite side of the House have some common ground. I want to talk in terms of the central importance of the politics of negotiation. There are many differences between us, Sir, but on this one it seems to me as I read the State President’s address and his utterances over the last year, that we are agreed that the politics of negotiation must assume a central place in all our future planning.

A long time ago, Sir, a leading South African referring to the future of Black South Africans said inter alia the following, and I quote:

These words were uttered in a speech by Sir James Rose-Innes, Chief Justice of the Transvaal and later of the Union of South Africa, as reported in The Cape Times of 29 May 1929.

A great deal has happened since then. However, I think his major thesis remains. Force has failed. Despite the myriad laws, despite the police, the army and security forces, this Government has not been able to subdue the longing for and striving after freedom and liberty which is in the hearts of all the disenfranchised; on the contrary, it would appear that every attempt to separate, to legislate out of existence and to control by force has only strengthened the flame for justice and has convinced even this Government in the most recent days that apartheid is not the solution for our country. This has been a very costly lesson.

What is your solution?

I shall come to that in a moment. This lesson has been costly in lives and property and has brought about very nearly a total breakdown in trust between Black and White in South Africa.

I have just been asked by an hon member what my solution is. I want to deal with that right now because I want to focus on the politics of negotiation. However, then of course the question must also arise in regard to what we mean by negotiation. First of all, let me make it very clear that it is not capitulation. That is a charge that is hurled against this side of the House over and over again. I repeat: It is not capitulation. [Interjections.] Let me also go on immediately to say that it is not mere discussion either between the ruling force and other groups. It is not even dialogue although dialogue is a little better than discussion when one starts trying to listen to the other person instead of doing all the talking oneself. It is also certainly more than consultation where we may have a plan on which we consult others but if they do not like it then it is just too bad for them. It is not co-option either in which we decide what we are going to do and then seek to co-opt others just as this Government has been doing for a very long time. That is not negotiation. Essentially negotiation involves bargaining—a process of bargaining between at least two equal and free parties who have a willingness to negotiate with one another and recognise and accept one another’s bona fides.

What about the ANC?

I shall deal with the ANC in due course.

In confrontation politics opposing sides are perceived as enemies whereas in negotiation politics the parties are not enemies but are bargaining parties who are convinced that they cannot make decisions the one without the other and that they must make them together for the sake of the future.

Prof Nic Wiehahn who is well known in this House and in South Africa has written a quite excellent article entitled Resep om suksesvol te onderhandel.

*He makes the statement that the time factor is important. He says:

†That is exactly the point we are trying to make to this Government—that time is not unlimited and that the longer we wait the more goodwill will be eroded thus making future negotiation almost impossible.

However, I suppose the hub of the question must be: with whom must negotiation take place? We have said over and over again from these benches not only that negotiation is imperative but also that there is no point in negotiating with those who cannot deliver; in other words, negotiation between the Government and genuine Black leaders who represent a constituency must begin. Inevitably the question will be asked: who are these Black leaders? One of the consequences of apartheid—and who must accept responsibility for that?; not this side of the House—is that the normal electoral processes have not taken place in Black politics. The result has been that all sorts of people, some from labour, some from the church, some from the community, have filled that vacuum. Surely it is not beyond the wit of the Government to devise ways and means of identifying leaders who have significant support.

One thing is vital. It is not enough to negotiate only with those with whom one is in agreement; that is easy and everybody can do that. Let me go further to say that it is not enough only to negotiate with moderates. The criterion is the level of support, the constituency which is represented. Negotiation, in a word, has to take place also with those who are diametrically opposed. For that reason the Government simply cannot wish away or ignore the ANC.

This is one of the reasons why the leader of this party and some of us have talked to a wide range of White and Black leadership throughout South Africa and beyond and have also sought to talk with the ANC. We have been criticised and condemned in some organs of the Press and in this House during this debate. I have no doubt—I ask hon members to listen to this—that the very people who condemn and criticise us now will one day have to take the route which we have already taken. [Interjections.]

I do not want to take on the mantle of a prophet but I am prepared to take this risk. I am prepared to say here and now that the Government will have to negotiate with the ANC as well as with others, and it will be sooner rather than later.

I want to say to the State President that there are those within his party, those within his caucus and perhaps even within his Cabinet who believe that and know it to be true. [Interjections.]

The one thing that this party has had to learn to avoid is to say “I told you so”, and we have bitten our tongue over and over again because it does not really serve any purpose. The hon member for Mossel Bay asked why we were not constructive, and when he then read all the things that the State President had been doing or was about to do, it read like a page in the PFP manifesto. [Interjections.] We have been constructive. The NP has taken over a great deal of our principles, and for that we are grateful.

Why then do you oppose it?

We oppose it because the NP has still a very long way to go. [Interjections.]

But at the same time you say you are in favour of it.

Of course we are in favour of some of the things which the Government does. We are pleased with some of those things, and we have supported them. Had that hon member been here when I first opened my mouth this afternoon, he would have heard me say that I was encouraged by the State President’s words but that I found them ambiguous because one of his own Ministers contradicted him the next day.

This is one of those “I told you so” things, and I shall be very brief. In 1979 I stood on a platform in Cape Town with Zinzi Mandela and called for Nelson Mandela’s release. I was then very strongly criticized by friend and foe alike, labelled as unpatriotic and worse, but seven years later the State President told the world that he was prepared to release Mr Mandela on humanitarian grounds. I am not so sure whether the hon the Minister of Law and Order sighed at that moment. Did he sigh? [Interjections.] May I ask the hon the Minister whether he does not like the idea of Mr Mandela being released on humanitarian grounds?

Your drama does not impress me.

I am talking about Mr Nelson Mandela. How does the hon the Minister feel about the release of Mr Nelson Mandela? [Interjections.]

I want to tell the State President that I congratulate him on his shift because he got off the hook brilliantly, but I want to ask him not to send Mr Mandela a copy of the speech; he should rather go and talk with him. The State President should be big, should be a statesman. He should sit down and see if he cannot find a way of solving this problem. It is not enough just to send him a little notice. This is so big and so important to all of us. He is not your run of the mill prisoner. The fact that his name was mentioned in the speech from the Throne, as it were, shows how important he is.

However, we must be consistent. It is no good condemning the PFP for calling for the ANC to be unbanned so that negotiation can take place and the killing can stop. On the other hand there is no point in the Government releasing Mandela—who, after all, is the leader of the ANC—if it is not going to allow him to organise freely. If he does so, he can be arrested for aiding and abetting a banned organisation. What sense does that make? If the Government is going to deal with Nelson Mandela then it will also have to deal with the ANC which according to every survey enjoys very wide support throughout South Africa. So let us not play games. I say to the Government release the man and get on with the politics of negotiation because we know we will have to do so sooner or later.

Finally I come to the preconditions for negotiation. Basically what we need to develop in South Africa is a climate of trust which will enable the negotiation process to start. Here I believe the Government faces its biggest problem and its greatest challenge. Because apartheid has been centre stage for almost 40 years and because the Government has made so many promises which it has not fulfilled, and because of the unrest and the deaths and the destruction of property, the Government enjoys very little if any credibility within the townships of our land. No matter what the State President says, it is no longer believed. That is where the challenge to the Government lies. The response even to the best words he uses in the finest advertisements is, “How the hell can we believe you?” Side by side with reform goes the daily diet of repression and, until we reconcile that situation, they cannot hear what is said.

The consequence is that the State President is not the only one who has an agenda. There are others outside who also have agendas and we simply have to bring the two sides together. The only way to do that is to try to meet the preconditions which must come about. Let us dismantle apartheid instead of toying with it. Let us release the political prisoners and let us unban the organisations. Let us get the show on the road, otherwise we risk disaster.

Mr Chairman, I listened attentively to the hon member. I am aware that there are hon members on this side of the House who intend replying in greater detail to some of the arguments which that hon member raised. Consequently I shall not even try to conduct a debate with him on the points which he put forward.

It is not easy.

No, it is not a question of not being easy. That hon member was more inclined to deliver a lecture than to debate, and there are hon members who will analyse parts of his lecture a little further for him.

Nevertheless I want to tell that hon member that he will achieve no useful purpose by trying to indicate that there is a difference between the address which the State President delivered and the speech made by the hon the Minister of National Education. [Interjections.] If the hon member would take the trouble to go and read those two speeches with as much care as he prepared his own speech, he will arrive at the same conclusion I have just indicated. [Interjections.] There are aspects which the hon member touched upon to which I shall also reply in the course of my speech and in regard to which I shall express a standpoint.

For the past 30 years and more the NP and the Government has been accused by the left wing of preparing this country for tragedy and conflict with its policy of apartheid and separate development. Today and in recent times, on the other hand, our experience has been that the Government is being reproached from the right because it has adopted a clear standpoint against apartheid which is hurtful and discriminatory and insulting, and is offering South Africa a new future. It is a future which is based on fundamental premises, common sense and Christian principles.

Mr Chairman, on a point of order: Are members of the NP entitled to say to me: “Hok toe” (Get back to your kennel)? [Interjections.]

Order! I cannot give a ruling on such a generalisation. If the hon member were to mention the name of the hon member who said that to him, I would be able to deal with it.

Sir, I think it was the hon member for Kraaifontein. [Interjections.] No, it was the hon member for Prieska. [Interjections.]

Order! The hon the Minister may proceed.

Mr Chairman, on a further point of order: The hon member for Prieska has been identified as the hon member who made that remark to the hon member for Jeppe. I want to know whether you will allow him to make such a remark to the hon member for Jeppe.

Did the hon member for Prieska say that?

No, Mr Chairman.

The hon the Minister may proceed.

Sir, it is true that hurtful and discriminatory measures and practices are, and must be, objectionable. It is also true, however, that in virtually every country in the world, differentiation is frequently essential and has to be maintained. The essence of the policy of the NP was not the caricature of apartheid with which we are being confronted today, although many unfortunate things are included in that concept. Its essence was in fact the concept of differential development—particularly in regard to own affairs.

This aspect of our policy consequently produced wonderful results. I should like to mention a few of them. I am thinking of the development of people, the development of independent states and national states, the development of administrative systems for everyone, and particularly for Whites, Coloureds and Asians up to parliamentary level, the tremendous improvement in the socio-economic conditions of the Coloured, Indian and Black people in particular and the recognition and development of a cultural life of its own for each group, in which was included its own schools and its own residential areas.

Surely we can continue in this way to point out the positive things for which this party has stood all these years, things which it brought into existence and is still bringing into existence today. That is why we on this side of the House say that we are proud of our party. [Interjections.] We are also proud of the many positive results our policy has produced.

I am looking forward with enthusiasm to helping to build the future, in which every South African will be able to occupy his rightful position in our country. I am glad to work on a future in which all of us, together with the State President, must help to develop a national unity which is not based on colour, sentiment or unnecessary emotion, but on the patriotism of all who form part of the South African nation. How many times has our State President not said this already? Let us therefore help to build this future, and let us be proud of it.

Having said these things to one another now, what are our alternatives? Let us consider the standpoints of the left-wing and right-wing members in this House. Let us look in the first place at the right wing. I just wish to point out a few aspects to the hon member for Waterberg. He told us the other day that his party had a proven policy. According to the programme of principles of his party, they stand for a White homeland and for White majority occupation. That is correct, not so? [Interjections.] I now want to put just this one question to the hon member: Where, and how? [Interjections.]

Sir, allow me to state a few facts to you. There is not a single magisterial district in our country in which the Whites are in the majority. [Interjections.] The Orange Free State province, to which the hon member for Rissik refers so frequently in this House as an example, is percentage-wise, for the present purposes, the Blackest province in South Africa. Demographic data indicates that the Whites, in 50 years’ time, will number approximately 10 million, while the Blacks will number approximately 84 million. [Interjections.] Furthermore, we must accept that according to data at my disposal—if correct—our Whites have the second slowest growth rate of Whites in the Western world. If we know this and accept it, I want to ask the hon member for Waterberg and his party once again: Where, and how? [Interjections.] We need not spend any more time on this matter; we are wasting one another’s time.

Let us now consider the left-wing group.

During recent months, particularly last year, the PFP was involved in attempts to try to establish the so-called alliance. It should have been clear to the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition at the foundation meeting already that he would not succeed in getting that usual and well-known little group of leftists off their chairs, to say nothing of off the ground. The hon the Leader of the Official Opposition discovered very quickly that his alliance would not succeed by raising a clenched right fist, crying out “Amandhla”, and waiting for the response of “Ngwetu” from the audience. This, he found out very quickly, was not going to get him anywhere in life. On the contrary, after even Nusas refused to participate in this alliance, the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition had to throw in the towel, with the admission that his party’s participation was actually an embarrassment to all concerned. What kind of admission is that from the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition in a country such as ours?

Since the PFP has virtually had no power base among the Whites since the referendum, I am not suprised that they are now concentrating to such an extent on the other population groups, but in this process they are making themselves completely repugnant to the electorate in South Africa, Whites and non-Whites. The hon the Leader of the Official Opposition and his party have thrown their doors open to all the population groups in South Africa. I want to ask the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition how many members of the other population groups he has enrolled in his party. [Interjections.] I wonder whether he is able to count them on more than his two hands.

That is why I am not surprised that the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition and other members of the PFP also took the tourist route to Lusaka. It was not surprising, for it has after all become a kind of status symbol for some people to visit the ANC in Lusaka, but the ANC is no tourist attraction. On the contrary, I was not surprised at all to hear, after their visit, that Oliver Tambo had referred jokingly and rather derogatorily to the PFP’s visit to them, and that they were not in the least bit impressed by the dialogue which took place between them.

What is important to us is that according to the statements of the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition himself, as reported in the media, the standpoint of the PFP is that it is senseless to expect the ANC to renounce its armed struggle as long as the reason for it, viz apartheid, continues to exist. I now wish to ask the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition whether he includes the entire programme of principles of the NP when he uses the word “apartheid”. This is the sense in which the word is used by so many people, as though it were the entire policy of the NP, and no distinction has ever been made by the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition in order to say what he is referring to, because it is not popular to refer to the positive aspects of this party’s policy; it is only popular to use the word “apartheid”. Surely the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition knows that that is not the correct standpoint. He knows that the standpoints of the ANC and the SA Communist Party entail the total overthrow of all democratic administrative systems in South Africa, and the establishment of a Marxist-socialist system in its place. It is also apparent that in brief the PFP’s standpoint is inter alia as follows.

Firstly, the release of Mandela and all political prisoners, and for them this is a prerequisite for a successful dialogue. The hon member for Pinelands is nodding his head, because he is in the forefront of those who demand this. At a meeting in the Cape Town city hall a few months ago, in a full city hall, the Progs present there almost applauded the roof off when the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition said and proposed that to them. That is the standpoint of the PFP.

Furthermore the PFP states that a national convention can only take place when certain conditions have been complied with. The hon the Leader of the Official Opposition did not spell out these conditions, and we should like to hear, at some time or another, what those conditions are. He must spell them out to us so that we can know what those conditions are to which the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition was referring.

What does the situation look like in regard to the release of the so-called political prisoners to which the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition referred? I am talking about those they want released. The hon the Leader of the Official Opposition and his party regard all persons who have been detained and/or sentenced in terms of security legislation, as political prisoners. This has been the party’s standpoint throughout. During the past nine years—that is until 31 December last year—the alliance of the ANC, the Communist Party of South Africa and the PAC committed 398 acts of terror and/or sabotage in the Republic of South Africa. It is those people who must be released.

During the last few months of 1985 there were 7 land mine, 67 hand grenade and 37 limpet mine incidents. In this process, during the past nine years, 201 terrorists have been caught and 79 killed in South Africa. A total of 85 people have been killed by terrorists in the incidents for which I have just furnished the figures. During the past few days we also lost a senior police officer, Col Welman, in Durban. He was killed as a result of one of the acts of terrorism committed there.

The hon the Leader of the Official Opposition is aware of the standpoint of the ANC as recently and repeatedly spelt out for us by Oliver Tambo. Briefly it entails the following in regard to the expansion of the violent onslaught: The White community must be brought to realise that the riots will not remain confined to the Black areas; the same actions which are being taken against Black members of the SA Police Force in Black residential areas, must also be taken against White SA Police Force and SA Defence Force members; the country, including the White areas must “go up in flames”; and a state of emergency should prevail throughout the country. This is briefly the standpoint of the people who must be released.

For what were they and their friends responsible? The horrific picture of the riots during the past 18 months is well-known to all of us. Because figures are being quoted here which in some respects are not entirely correct—and not with any ulterior motives—I should like to have a few figures placed on record for the sake of greater clarity. From 1 September 1984 to 24 January 1986, 955 people were killed in these riots. The total figure indicated by the Institute of Race Relations, in which is included the faction fights between the Zulus and the Pondos, as well as the casualties in Moutse and all kinds of other fights, cannot be attributed to the riots. These figures apply only to the people who were killed in the riots. Of the 955 victims, 628 were killed as a result of action by State bodies, and 327 by their own civilians—their own people. A total of 2 229 were wounded or injured by State action, and 1 429 by their own people. In this process 25 members of the security forces were killed and 534 injured. According to our calculations these miscreants have already caused damage amounting to R138 million.

At present there are 33 court cases pending, in which more than 100 people are being charged on serious charges in terms of security legislation and on the basis of facts arising out of acts of terror, sabotage and the general unrest situation. It is the release of these people which the PFP is demanding. They are also demanding that the violent organisation responsible for all these things should be freed from any statutory restrictions that have been imposed on them. Headlines in the Cape Times read: “The ANC must be unbanned”—as the hon member for Pinelands advocates every day of his life.

No, no!

These are the people. Now one asks oneself the following question: Why is the PFP adopting this attitude? Is it because so many of their supporters, together with the Boesaks, the Tutus and the Beyer Naudés and others are fiery supporters of the ANC and their group of organisations? The following question may also justifiably be put to the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition: Would he, if he was a Jew in Israel, have adopted the same attitude towards the PLO, or, if he was a Britisher in Britain, towards the IRA? Would he, if he had been a German in Germany, have adopted the same attitude towards the Baader-Meinhoff gang?

[Inaudible.]

No, that is not true. The British and others do not do that. If the reply of the hon the Leader is “no”, then one wonders why he does so in South Africa. And also, why does he do it to South Africa? If the PFP is not sympathetically disposed towards the ANC, why do their members attend so many funerals at which the objectives of the ANC are furthered with so much enthusiasm by means of the spoken word, by means of songs and the display of ANC colours, their flag and even the red hammer-and-sickle flag of communism? [Interjections.] The latest example is the hon member for Walmer, who attended a funeral on 18 January 1986. He walked in the forefront, among the ANC colours. The top PFP man in Port Elizabeth walks in the forefront, among the ANC colours.

The windbag (windpomp) is the top man. [Interjections.]

Surely we never see any of the hon members attending the funerals of Whites or non-Whites killed by land mines, limpet mines, hand grenades and all kinds of other weapons. We never see any of them there. We never hear a sympathetic word preceding such a funeral. We never hear of a telegram that was sent. Why do they stand so enthusiastically under the ANC colours and the red flag that is being displayed?

Mr Chairman, May I ask the hon the Minister a question?

No, the hon the Minister is not prepared to take any questions now.

Is it because not one of their friends is present on that occasion, and no flags are waving, or must they first be invited, as the diplomats of certain Western countries require, according to a spokesman of the Canadian Embassy? They may as well tell us. Why does the PFP do this kind of thing? I think an important reason is because they realise that they no longer have any power base among the Whites in South Africa. They think that they will eventually come into power in South Africa with the Black vote alone. In this process—and I am saying this to the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition now—of playing along with the ANC, the PFP is finally destroying itself.

After all, it is no wonder that the hon member for Bryanston has aged so noticeably here during the past year. [Interjections.]

Yesterday we listened here to the hon member for Houghton, who made her usual quota of allegations and accusations, inter alia against the Police. I want to dwell on only a few of these. The hon member said inter alia:

The hon member need not reply to me on this today. She could even write me a short note, furnishing the information in it. Where and when did these incidents occur of the “many people being shot, killed or injured under the alleged circumstances”? [Interjections.] I challenge the hon member to give me this information. It is easy to make these accusations here in this House. However, she should furnish me with these particulars. [Interjections.]

†She refers to a ban on TV cameras and the Press. When and where have the Press been banned? It is all very well to make an allegation as she did yesterday. Where and when have the Press been banned? On the contrary, anyone in his sound mind will agree with our decision in respect of the TV operations, and I want to quote to you very briefly what was reported in The Star of 15 January this year:

From the USA—The ban has had an effect to the benefit of the South African Government …

Of course it has!

It goes on to say:

*Why cannot the hon member try to be patriotic in regard to this matter at least, which has done us so much harm?

She referred once again to the so-called “police brutalities”. What are the facts? Let me mention them to you briefly. In the first place the Government’s standpoint is very clear, namely that no unlawful or wrongful conduct whatsoever by any member of the Forces will be allowed or condoned. I have already on various occasions personally, on my own initiative, taken stringent steps in this regard.

Furthermore I want to place on record that all cases against members of the SAP which have been brought to my attention properly, have been or are being investigated and the dossiers submitted to the Attorney-General for his final decision. In this regard, too, I can give this House examples, with reference to requests from among the ranks of the PFP. For example, there is the series of particulars which were submitted to me, such as the case of the hon member for Port Elizabeth Central in regard to Cradock; of the hon member for Albany with regard to Fort Beaufort; of the hon member for Johannesburg North with regard to Mamelodi; and so I can continue. The State President himself gave certain assurances in this connection and ordered investigations on the basis of complaints brought to his attention by certain church leaders. Furthermore, emergency regulation detainees were visited by judges, and all complaints which they received, received immediate attention. Another example is that the Kannemeyer Commission was appointed, and its investigation was finalised.

I want to mention a few further examples of what I am referring to. Here in the Western Cape and the Boland, the Law Society of the Cape of Good Hope even placed advertisements in the newspapers in which people with grievances were encouraged and invited to come to them with their complaints. They would help to take down statements if the people did not want to go to the police. The result was that 10 people reacted to the advertisements. Six of the complaints had no bearing on the unrest. Of the remaining four cases the police, of their own accord, had by then already given attention to two. In the other two cases we never heard anything further from the law society. I do not know what happened to either the complainants or the law society. [Interjections.]

At that stage the PFP appointed the Van Eck Commission. The other evening I heard someone refer to this as the “Van Gek-kommissie” in my presence. I think it is indeed an absurd (gek) commission. For months this PFP commission went around from house to house in the Black and Coloured residential areas here in the Western Cape and the Boland, encouraging the people to lay charges against the police if they had grievances or had been injured, or if there had been deaths, or whatever the case may be. What was the ultimate result of this? After months and months of home visits by these PFP members, they brought eight complaints to our attention. [Interjections.] I have received the particulars from the Commissioner of Police.

In the whole area of the Western Cape a total of 40 cases were laid before us: two by the attorneys, eight by the PFP, two arising out of Supreme Court applications lodged against the police, and 28 directly by complainants. This was the sum total, after more than 3 400 cases of unrest had occurred in this area. That is the sum total of the complaints made against the SA Police through all these bodies. [Interjections.]

Since 21 July of last year until 2 February of this year, 7 777 people have been detained in terms of the emergency regulations. At present considerably less than 300 of them are being detained, and during the whole period, and, among these thousands of people, we only received 141 complaints. These include complaints against the SA Police, the SA Defence Force and the SA Railway Police. Of these complaints 11 have been withdrawn, 13 have been finalised as unfounded and 11 have remained untraced. In 22 cases the Attorney-General refused to prosecute, in 21 cases the decision of the Attorney-General is still being awaited, and 63 cases are still being investigated.

I can continue in this vein to prove that our total involvement comprises only a small portion of 1% of the total number of complaints received, in comparison with the depiction of the extent of the unrest situation.

The hon member also alleged that the announcement of the emergency regulations did not have any beneficial or levelling-off effect on the violence. But what are the facts? Surely the hon member knows better. I shall furnish a few examples. Let us first consider the situation in the Western Province. Here everything was reasonably quiet until the end of June last year. There were perhaps one or two incidents per month. Then, in July, all hell broke loose here. Surely the hon member knows why that happened. Surely the hon member knows very well how many of her friends, among others, were also involved in that, which resulted in things beginning to hot up here. Since that time the unrest has mounted to a climax, to such an extent that the State President and the Government were obliged, late in October, to proclaim an emergency situation in those areas as well.

What was the effect of this? In October, prior to the announcement of the emergency situation, there were 1 413 incidents of unrest here in the Western Cape area. In November these levelled off to 345, in December to 142, and in January there were considerably fewer than 100 incidents. Now the hon member is saying that the emergency regulations had no effect. I can sketch a similar picture as regards the situation in the Eastern Cape and on the East Rand.

At present there are two areas in particular which are causing us concern, the West Rand and the Soweto areas. We are giving serious attention to these areas, and I hope it will soon be possible for me, as the representative, to advise hon members that as in the rest of South Africa, things are going better in those areas where an emergency has been proclaimed.

That is why I can give this House the assurance that, taking everything into consideration, the actions and initiatives of the Government were correct. They had the desirable effect. We must thank the State President personally, every member of the security management team and every member of the various force and departments involved for their hard work and their sustained positive attitude. [Interjections.] I want to give hon members the assurance that we will combat the enemies of this country until they adopt different views, or until they have been destroyed.

Mr Chairman, the hon Minister of Law and Order has raised a number of issues some of which I will deal with during the course of my speech. I thought that at the beginning of his speech his definition of apartheid and his differentiation between what he considers apartheid to mean and what the members of the CP consider it to mean, was revealing and I shall deal with that later.

The hon Minister’s remarks in regard to the state of emergency in South Africa and violence which exists in this country also, I believe, are revealing. The hon Minister started his speech by talking about the release of political prisoners, a matter which is related to the remarks which have been made about the possible release of Mr Nelson Mandela. I want to ask the hon Minister whether he is in favour of the offer which was made by the State President in his Opening Address in regard to Mr Nelson Mandela? Does that have the support of the hon Minister?

Yes, of course I am part of the decision-making. Do not ask me silly questions.

The hon Minister answers that by saying “Yes, of course.” Then I want to ask him why he is differentiating in the case of other political prisoners? He spent a good time of his address this afternoon …

I have not even discussed that issue.

The hon Minister talked about the release of political prisoners and asked how the PFP could suggest that other political prisoners should be released.

Yes, he did.

The PFP is not impressed with the hon Minister when he says that we are sympathetic towards those who are involved in violence in South Africa. We have stated very clearly time and time again in this debate and in other instances that we are opposed to violence whether it comes from outside or whether it is perpetrated by the Government of the country. We find violence totally repugnant in any shape or form. We believe that if people have committed violence then they must be subject to the attention of the courts. They must be tried and if they are guilty of violence they must pay the penalty therefor. If there are people who are simply detained because of their political beliefs we believe that no advantage can accrue to South Africa on that basis.

The hon Minister also talks about the banning of the ANC. Does the hon Minister really believe at this stage that the banning of the ANC has achieved anything in South Africa? The ANC has been banned for decades.

Why then the state of emergency?

Why then do we have a state of emergency? Can the hon Minister say that the influence of the ANC has abated because the organisation as such has been banned? Is he blind to the figures, the statistics which come, not from this side of the House but from others, from independent sources? These figures indicate that in certain areas of South Africa as many as 70% of the Black population will identify with the ANC. What then has been achieved by banning an organisation such as the ANC?

The hon Minister also tried to defend his department and himself from the ban or the restriction imposed on TV cameras in areas of unrest. He believes that that has achieved something. It was not the presence of those TV cameras which has caused South Africa trouble; it was what was depicted for those TV cameramen to take that has caused South Africa trouble. [Interjections.] I was overseas in August of 1985. The first item on BBC news was a picture which will remain in my mind for a long time. It was one of the hon Minister’s policemen here in Cape Town whipping with obvious relish, or apparent relish, a young White student of UCT who was screaming while she was being dragged bodily across the street. What sort of image of South Africa does he think that creates? [Interjections.] One cannot blame the cameramen for that. One cannot blame the TV crews. One must blame the situation which was caused by the lack of attention given to the administration of his department by the hon Minister.

I want to return to other matters in regard to this debate, particularly to look again at the Opening Address of the State President. From the outset of this debate we have tried to be objective in our attitude towards the State President’s speech. We have tried to look at the ambiguities which we believe exist in order to try to get a clear picture of what the State President in fact intended. We know that there were great expectations before the State President made his speech last Friday. In the light of the circumstances prevailing in South Africa—the unrest and the economic depression and recession—and in the light of the background to the unfortunate response to his Durban speech, many people believed that this speech was of vital importance to South Africa. It is thus very important that we in these benches try to analyse that speech in an attempt to get a clear picture of the precise direction in which the Government is moving.

I think it is fair to say that the initial response to the State President’s speech was by and large favourable. It ranged from fulsome and extravagant praise from quarters from which such praise could be expected to guarded approval of some of the more hopeful rhetoric contained in this speech.

Critical to the whole reaction to the State President’s speech, however, was—and is—the central question: did the speech mean that the Government had turned its back on apartheid? Certainly, Sir, the rhetoric in the speech was there to support the view that we had turned our back on apartheid. I must say, too, that the Government’s marketing of the speech certainly indicates that South Africa is now heading in a new direction and is moving towards a new era.

It is, however, our function to try to establish the precise intentions of the Government; and I must say that, judging by the speeches that have been delivered on that side of the House, there is more confusion today than there was last Friday as to precisely what the State President meant. There is much more ambiguity today than there was a few days ago. This is particularly so as regards the comments made by the hon the Minister of National Education, who gave his interpretation of the State President’s speech. This did not take us much further.

I just quoted the parts which you choose to ignore.

Now the hon the Minister says he quoted the parts …

… that you choose to ignore.

I sat in this House in the 50s when that hon Minister’s father was sitting there, and I must say that this hon Minister’s views on and interpretation of separate development and apartheid have changed little from the views held by the hon members in those benches at that time.

This afternoon the hon the Minister of Law and Order, in responding to the CP, said that he was opposed to hurtful apartheid, to discriminatory apartheid; but he also said that the good things of apartheid were separate schools, separate residential areas, and so on—in other words, back to the old policy of separate development. That, Sir, does not conform with what the State President said the other day, namely that we must get away from the outmoded and outdated concept of apartheid in South Africa.

What is apartheid? In essence, apartheid means the enforced separation of people on the grounds of colour and race. That is what it means—the enforced separation of people on the grounds of colour and race. As I have said, Sir, I sat in this House in the 1950s and I saw all the pillars of apartheid being erected. The Group Areas Act, the Reservation of Separate Amenities Act, the Population Registration Act, all belong to the apartheid era of the 1950s. I want to know—and I think the country wants to know—whether this is the outdated concept of apartheid which the State President said we had outgrown; and if this is so, does the Government intend repealing those particular measures and many like them?

We in these benches have stated over the years and again forcibly in this debate that, unless the Government is prepared to restore freedom of choice and freedom of association on a non-racial or non-ethnic basis for all South Africans, and to scrap all laws which force people to live and to operate separately in South Africa, it cannot be said that the Government accepts that we have outgrown the outdated concept of apartheid.

In our view the whole question of freedom of association is pivotal to this issue, and South Africans will never find themselves if, no matter what their personal wishes are, they are compelled by law to be separated along racial and ethnic lines.

I want to test the Government, and I should like the attention of the hon the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning in particular, and also of the State President. As I was saying, I want to test the Government on this issue and on related issues that were raised in the State President’s Address in regard to a particular situation, namely the situation in Natal and kwaZulu. I do hope the hon the Minister will give me some attention.

I am listening to what you are saying.

I want to test the Government and the State President’s speech in regard to the particular situation of Natal and kwaZulu. The Government is aware that there is a widespread belief there that the two areas should be treated as one region and governed and administered as an entity, on the basis not merely of an administrative accord but also of power-sharing at legislative level. There has been a great deal of talk about this matter, including references in this debate, and the Government must at least be aware of the extent of support the idea enjoys among a wide cross-section of the people of Natal.

Evidence of this widespread support can be found, firstly, from the operation and report a few years ago of the Buthelezi Commission. This was an extremely important commission, despite the attitude of the Government towards it at the time. A most important aspect that should not be lost sight of even today is that the initiative came from the Black community and aimed at finding an accord with Whites in order to explore the possibility of power-sharing. There is evidence of support from the Chambers of Commerce, Chambers of Industry and the Sakekamer, and from the sugar industry, agriculture and other interested parties indicating that they look to some sort of dispensation which will allow Natal and kwaZulu to be governed as an entity. There is, of course, support for the notion from the overwhelming majority of the people of Natal. This concept has become known as “the Natal option”.

In this regard I believe that people, particularly in Natal, will have looked at the State President’s Address to see what hope there is of the Natal option being accommodated in a future South Africa.

Mr Chairman, may I ask the hon member a question?

If there is time, I shall certainly try to answer the hon the Minister’s question when I have finished my speech.

There is encouraging rhetoric, but what in fact are the Government’s intentions? The State President referred, for example, to the fact that during this session there would be legislation for “the restructuring of the system of provincial government to involve all communities”. That would seem to open up an immense opportunity for the realisation of the Natal option, but one must ask what the basis of such restructuring will be. Will it take place on an ethnic or a group basis? Will it take place on a basis determined and decreed by the NP caucus, or on the basis of freedom of choice of the people of the provinces? What consideration is going to be given to the views of the people in each province?

Let me take another part of the State President’s Address and relate it to hopes for the recognition of the Natal option. He said:

The present divided situation in Natal/kwa-Zulu is a classic example of both the “outdated colonial system of paternalism” and the “outdated concept of apartheid” to which the State President referred. The situation in Natal, in fact, is a product of both the old colonial system and the operation of the apartheid policy.

I can do no better in this regard than to quote Dr Oscar Dhlomo, a senior Minister of the kwaZulu Government and Secretary-General of Inkatha in a paper which he presented at a symposium in Natal last year. Dr Dhlomo said:

These words draw our attention closely to the fact that the present situation in Natal and KwaZulu is a joint product of the old system of colonialism and apartheid.

If we accept what the State President has said, namely that we have outgrown the colonial system and the apartheid concept, where then do we turn in the Province of Natal? Surely we must accept the reality of the situation, namely that this region must be treated as a single unit, that kwaZulu and Natal are a geographic, economic and political entity. Surely that is the obvious conclusion to which we must come.

Mr Chairman, may I ask the hon member to identify the Natal option which he says has the support of the majority of the people?

I am coming to that and will deal with it in a few minutes.

If I am to take the State President at his word when he talks of the restructuring of the provincial system to involve all communities, when he talks of the sharing of power between those communities and the devolution of power as far as possible, then what I plead for this afternoon is a federal system of government in which Natal will be given the highest level of autonomy to enable Natal/kwaZulu to be treated as an entity in which the people of the region will be able to legislate for their joint regional needs and provide the administrative structures required on the basis of real power-sharing. That is basically what I am pleading for.

If the State President in his new reformist role, in his role to move away from outdated apartheid and colonial concepts, is prepared to allow freedom of choice among the majority of people of Natal then I believe there will be overwhelming support for the reforms which I propose, namely that Natal/kwaZulu to be treated as an entity both at a legislative and administrative level.

But you have not identified the option.

I am going to give the hon the Minister the option. He should be well aware of it too.

The question is: what does the Government intend? I agree with the State President when he says: “There are no easy and simple solutions to our challenges and no ready examples and models for us to reproduce.” He said further: “The South African Government has to prove that true democracy is capable of application in our multicultural society.”

Here in Natal we have a golden opportunity to meet part of that challenge. There is the base of the Buthelezi Commission to which I have referred. There is the widespread support of which the Government must be well aware.

I am aware of certain steps which are at present being taken in the Natal joint committees of the province and kwaZulu and between the hon Minister’s department and the other two sections dealing mainly with development prospects and with administrative and executive details.

I want to know what the end result will be of the Government’s planning and thinking. I have indicated what I believe the option is that is open to the Government. This is in response to the hon the Minister’s question. Administrative accords are not enough. This is not what is meant by the Natal option.

The hon the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning was quoted in this morning’s Cape Times as saying that there are talks at administrative and executive levels. However, that is not the concept.

That is not what I said; that is what the council said.

In that case I want the hon the Minister to tell me what he believes the Natal option is. [Interjections.] I believe that the people who propose the Natal option mean that there must be unification of and legislative power-sharing between the two regions as well as administrative power-sharing.

The hon the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning has said that he will listen to alternatives from Natal. I want to issue a warning that these initiatives from Natal must not be treated lightly, neither must their consideration be delayed nor must they be seen in isolation from the problems which exist in the rest of South Africa.

I want to make a few points specifically in this regard. Firstly, there is urgency because the priceless commodity of Black willingness to seek accommodation in a power-sharing structure will not endure indefinitely if the present vacuum is not satisfactorily filled. Secondly, it is necessary to note that no meaningful development of the Natal/kwaZulu option can succeed if it is presented in isolation from any central constitutional dispensation for Blacks. No Black people and certainly not the Zulu nation will accept a regional power-sharing dispensation as a substitute for power-sharing at central government level.

Thirdly, Sir, the Government must not force its own version of restructured second-tier government on the people of Natal and kwaZulu. I believe, Sir, that a representative Natal forum has to be convened, one that will be totally representative of all political parties and of all other political groupings in Natal, as well as of commerce, industry and all other sectors in Natal. When one looks at the State President’s speech, at the whole process of looking for a new road in South Africa along which true democracy can be accomplished, I believe the Natal situation presents an ideal opportunity for that, and that is what I am pleading for, Sir. Unless the Government is prepared, however, to attend to these matters and to turn its back on apartheid in the true sense of the word, we must back the motion of no confidence moved by the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition.

Mr Chairman, I am sure the hon member for Berea will forgive me for not joining him on his flight to kwaZulu and Natal. I should have liked to address a few remarks to the hon the Minister of Law and Order but after shooting a few arrows in the direction of the Conservative Party he left the House, failing to show us the courtesy of remaining to listen to our replies to his arguments. [Interjections.]

* Nevertheless, Mr Chairman, I want to say an important thing to the hon the Minister of Law and Order in his absence. He is now moving away from the policy on the grounds of which he was elected to the hon member for Potchefstroom in the 1981 general election. It is that very same policy he is rejecting now. It is the policy he now says is not attainable. Throughout this debate, Mr Chairman, we heard the same refrain from the side of hon members on the side of the Government, the refrain that the policy of separate development, of separate freedoms, of separate sovereignties, is no longer attainable. If that is the case, Mr Chairman, surely there is only one honourable thing for the National Party to do. That is to say to the people: You elected us in 1981 to govern the country. You elected us on the strength of a specific policy which is no longer attainable. For that reason we are now resigning and we shall hold a new election on the strength of a new policy, if the National Party has one now.

That is correct! [Interjections.]

Mr Chairman, the whole central question … Oh, I am delighted to see the hon the Minister of Law and Order has returned to his seat. I merely want to respond quickly to a further aspect of his speech. I should like to associate myself with what the hon the Minister of Law and Order said when he expressed his appreciation and thanks towards the SA Police Force and the security forces for the excellent work they are doing in these very difficult times experienced by South Africa at present.

Under such a rotten Government!

In his speech the hon the Minister mentioned a whole number of offences committed by people who are still in prison, which are given as reasons as to why they should be kept in prison. He did not enumerate the list of offences committed by Nelson Mandela, however. We all know what offences Mandela committed. Yet the hon the Minister wants to free Mandela. Last year he wanted to do so on condition that Mandela renounced violence. Now he wants to free him on the grounds of humanitarian considerations. Apparently those humanitarian reasons did not exist last year. It seems such reasons do exist this year. That, Mr Chairman, shows us how consistent the NP Government is! [Interjections.]

The most important aspect, the central question which is the actual concern of this debate, is the question as to whether apartheid is dead or still alive. On the one hand we see the hon the Minister of National Education floundering in the last ditch of the struggle for apartheid, whereas the hon member for Innesdal and the hon the Minister’s other liberal friends, including of course his friends from the Press, and also his “Ouboet”, are already making the funeral arrangements for apartheid. [Interjections.] It looks as though the Titanic is heading towards its iceberg once again.

FW is going to do the acknowledgements at the grave!

That iceberg takes the shape of the hon the Minister of National Education. The day before yesterday he practised semantics in a very ingenious way, and very subtly. He, the hon the Minister of National Education, is a lawyer himself and he should know, therefore, that the basic rule with regard to interpretation of the law amounts to the fact that words have to be interpreted in accordance with their usual meaning.

Then, of course, we must also take the advertisement distributed in the newspapers and on Network into account when we do this interpretation. The State President said we had outgrown the concept of apartheid. In the advertisement, which incidentally cost R30 000, it is said that those who want to seize power shout that apartheid lives, but those who want to share power know that it is dying. That is what it says. “That is the reality!” Outgrown! Disappearing! Then the State President says:

That is what the advertisement says. There is no talk of the alternatives in respect of freedom and in respect of own schools, own facilities and own communities which can develop to self-determination.

In connection with that specific paragraph to which the hon the Minister of National Education referred, I merely want to tell him one cannot underwrite own schools, an own community life and self-determination unless one has an own, separate sovereignty. [Interjections.] One cannot do it by means of minority vetoes, the courts or consociation ideas. It can only be done through the protection of a sovereign Parliament. Only in that way can one protect those communities’ own community life, schools and everything else.

But you have it in a joint Parliament now.

Which you established. [Interjections.]

That is exactly where we find a further contradiction. It is still NP domination. [Interjections.] Hon members on the opposite side will not be able to get away with that forever.

It is quite interesting that since the hon the Minister of National Education and the hon member for Innesdal spoke, apart from the hon the Minister of Law and Order, we have not yet heard how all the hon members feel about these two different interpretation attached to the speech of the State President. Before we are accused once again of putting up straw dolls, it is necessary for an authority in the Government, who is still in the hierarchy of the Government, to explain to us the ordinary meaning of ordinary words—apartheid is dead!

John Wiley.

Yes, Sir, speaking of John Wiley, the hon the Minister of Environment Affairs and Tourism says “welcome home”. Actually it is the PFP who should say “welcome home” to the NP. It is strange that the hon the Minister of Environment Affairs and Tourism refers to his old friend the Sunday Times to prove that the State President is correct. The only thing I can say in that connection is: O homines, O mores! [Interjections.]

There is a cartoon in the Sunday Times of 29 October 1978 of the hon member for Sea Point sitting on a horse with a sword in his hand. The inscription on the sword is “consensus politics”, and the State President is sitting on his horse, saying “separate development”. Then the PFP boasts the new alternative—the Slabbert Commission’s solution, viz:

That is the NP policy. That is the policy towards which they are moving. When the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition spoke on Monday, hon members of the NP were listening to a professional Prog who was indicating to the amateur Progs how they should act henceforth.

What is the contrast? In 1977 Mr Vorster returned from abroad after he had had discussions with Messrs Mondale, Kransky and Houphouet-Boigny. He was under immense pressure. The hon member for Springs who was still with Die Transvaler at that stage, quoted him as saying—

This was said after he had been under immense pressure. Nine years later his successor, with feet of clay, is under the same pressure, and he yields and says “goodbye” to apartheid, and his hon the Minister of National Education is trying to stem the tide. This demonstrates anew how right conservatives were to leave the NP when they did.

With what kind of shock did the general public take cognisance of the lack of credibility on the side of the NP? What quagmire of contradictions do we have now? The hon the Minister of National Education tried to sail through it very cleverly the other day, but on Sunday night, in that 50-minute television advertisement in which we had to listen to the hon the Minister of Foreign Affairs, he became angry with the interviewer because he asked him whether separate areas and separate schools were going to disappear as well. The hon the Minister of Foreign Affairs replied: What else must we do to satisfy you? “Anyway, I am telling you it is on the agenda.” It is probably not on the agenda of the hon the Minister of National Education. Neither do I think it is on the agenda of the hon the Minister of Transport Affairs. It may be on the agenda of the hon members for Randburg and Innesdal and people like them.

The Titanic is sailing towards the iceberg. May this be the opportunity for the hon the Minister of National Education to build a bridge among the rocks that have fallen, to a truly conservative South Africa.

I want to go on to another subject. I am referring to the hon the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs who said in almost the words of a former British Prime Minister the other day: “South Africa has never had it so good.” He tells us things are much better now than they were 10 years ago. It is merely a question of insolvency having risen by 103% during the past year. In the same way, liquidations have risen by 103% during the past year. The price of petrol has risen from 9,5 cents per litre to more than 100 cents per litre, “but you have never had it so good.” The inflation rate has risen to 18,5%. The unemployment figure among the Whites, Coloureds and Indians has risen from 40 000 to 69 623 since January 1985. The unemployment figure of the Transport Services as a result of the dismissal of railway workers during the past few years has risen to approximately 40 000, “but we have never had it so good.” Where has the hon the Deputy Minister come from? Where has he been? [Interjections.]

Mr Chairman, may I put a question to the hon member?

The hon the Deputy Minister knows I cannot reply to a question now, as I have only three minutes left.

The NP has become the hobbyhorse of big money, which remains powerless while the prices of essential commodities rise, in many cases without sound reasons, and after clandestine mutual monopolistic agreements, not as a result of healthy competition. The hon the Minister of Trade and Industry is sitting there. What is he going to do about the price of milk? Instead of the producer’s receiving the benefit of the increased price, monopolies came into existence and those people are profiting. Cartels are being benefited.

It is the Government which allows the hon member for Overvaal to say the days are gone when the Black man had to work hard to make his contribution to the country’s economy while the Whites stood in the sun and talked nonsense and tried to sell cars. The hon member gets away with that kind of language without being repudiated. Calls are constantly made upon the workers not to ask for higher wages and better salaries, but at the same time nothing is done to tell the capitalists to keep their prices down.

One has only to think of the pressure being exerted on the miners at this stage to accept the seventh report of the Wiehahn Commission. The point here is the question of scheduled persons as against qualified persons. This struggle to push the White miner from his position has been taking place since 1893. To us it seems that 1986 is the year which is going to deal the White miners a death blow in those important posts they fill, for the sake of Black workers of whom 85% come from other states. That is the position.

I want to conclude by saying we shall continue to go ahead single-mindedly in these days when Dr Willem de Klerk and his kindred spirits try to dispirit us. Whereas Stalin called the liberals “useful idiots”, perhaps the SA Government can negotiate with revolutionaries. I merely want to read the last section of the State President’s speech:

Surely that is an invitation to negotiation, and to whom did he address it? To the ANC! it is addressed to the Communist Party of South Africa. It is addressed to Moscow. [Interjections.] Or is it addressed to the Christelike Studentevereniging of South Africa? [Interjections.]

There was a senator in the old Roman Empire—the hon the Minister of Education and Development Aid will remember—who never ended a speech without saying that Hannibal had to be destroyed; “Carthago delenda est”. We conservatives in South Africa say to the Government: “Botha delenda est”. [Interjections.]

Mr Chairman, it is certainly no secret that the hon member for Brakpan, in his time, was an avid supporter of Mr Vorster. It is also no secret that the majority of the hon CP members were formerly members of the NP, while Mr Vorster was Prime Minister.

It is very interesting that less than 14 days ago Mr Jaap Marais addressed a full reply to the CP in Die Afrikaner, in which he explained on what grounds he had moved away from Mr Vorster. Before I come to that, I just want to say that the hon member for Sasolburg and the hon members of the CP will of course have to have a go at one another in order to iron out a few differences.

One of the lesser matters to which we hope to get a few amusing answer is for example the HNP’s policy in respect of the elimination of English as an official language. We should like to know whether the hon member for Sasolburg is going to content himself with that kind of talk, because he was so brave as to say that he was going to adopt that standpoint here. Then there was the question of the elimination of Bophuthatswanan independence, one of the creations of the hon member for Lichtenburg, when we were all in one party. We should like to know what the standpoint of the hon member for Sasolburg is in regard to domination over Indians, a matter over which he is the subject of severe reproach by hon members of the CP. A debate among those hon members on all these very interesting points lies ahead.

The most important question concerning hon members of the CP, who were sworn supporters of Mr Vorster and who continually throughout campaigns presented Mr Vorster’s policies as their own, is this: Why did their paths separate at the time from that of the hon member for Sasolburg? The hon member for Brakpan must listen carefully now. Mr Jaap Marais, referring to the fact that he supported Mr Vorster, said:

He also attacked him on his personal taste and judgement. But the worst is still to come. He said:

We are talking about the year 1969 now. He went on to say:

This according to Mr Jaap Marais. Why is the hon member for Brakpan not looking at me? [Interjections.] It is he who has just labelled us—in the language of the Russian whom he quoted. Why is the hon member so modest now? Are the harsh facts not that in his time already, Mr Vorster said loudly and clearly that his party was moving away from discrimination? He took the first step with his sports policy. [Interjections.]

Jan van Riebeeck was the first to say it!

Wonderful! What is the hon member for Jeppe still doing on that side? [Interjections.] But we have now devoted sufficient attention to the hon members of the CP. With their anachronistic approach they are still going to provide us amusing moments in this House. [Interjections.]

Order!

In his speech the Leader of the Official Opposition tried to give us a very clear definition of apartheid. His definition, however, is far wider than is really accepted internationally. The hon members for Berea and Pinelands went further. It is very clear that their criticism was not aimed at legislation bringing about separation, but at this Parliamentary institution itself. If the State President says that apartheid is an anachronism, should we not test this statement in the light of the widest interpretation attached to it internationally. How then is this concept understood? It is defined as—

The hon the Leader of the Official Opposition agrees with that. This party’s standpoint is therefore that race discrimination and exploitation does not appear on our agenda. The PFP as well as the CP agree with that. It was race discrimination and exploitation or rather apartheid, as the outside world terms it—which the State President rejected in his Opening Address. It no longer appears on our agenda.

The concept of exploitation also includes economic exploitation, and the hon member for Houghton will forgive me if I say that it also includes labour exploitation. Certain hotel groups were guilty of this in the old days. This side of the House rejects apartheid in this sense, and dissociates itself from it. The hon member for Brakpan, as well as the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition, agree with me that in this sense it is objectionable.

The State President, however, has clearly and plainly put something in its place. Running through his opening address like a golden thread are five objectives. I should like to enumerate these objectives again. There is the right to live, which includes human dignity, freedom and the protection of property—regardless of colour, race or creed; the right to education, with the emphasis on the objective of parity in the provision of education; socio-economic rights, with the emphasis on the promotion of entrepreneurship, housing and the creation of job opportunities; the right to religious freedom—that which most intimately affects humankind. Where in the world is religious freedom as effectively protected? In the security and custodial services the Word is being preached to more than 100 denominations and religious groupings.

In his treatment of these viewpoints the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition mentioned them for only a few moments in order to create a climate. Ultimately the hon the Leader of the Opposition coupled his approach to only one moment as far as human rights were concerned, and that was political rights. He ignored the cultural rights completely. I think I am drawing a reasonable conclusion.

At one stage the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition denied this very important component. That is in addition to the four I have already mentioned, together with political rights. In their approach he and the hon leaders on the opposite sides, as well as other hon members of the Opposition, denied completely the vital existence of cultural rights. If we accept the real existence of cultural rights, viz that which regulates a person’s marital matters, that which regulates a person’s school standard, that which determines where he wants accommodation, then all these things deal with one’s political and cultural rithts, but this was completely ignored by that side. The point, therefore, is that the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition, in his interpretation of what we are dealing with now, completely ignored that the State President emphasised, namely minority rights. It is very clear that the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition conveniently avoided the fact that ours is a country consisting of minorities and population groupings.

In his speech the hon the Minister of National Education emphasised this aspect, and that is not in conflict with what the State President offered us, because the hon the Minister of National Education built his entire speech around the concept of the State President that our country is one of minorities. In his presentation the hon the Minister of National Education elaborated on this point and explained what it all entailed. Consequently I think the hon member for Berea, as well as the hon member for Yeoville made an unjustified attack on the hon the Minister of National Education. I just want to quote to you from what the State President said. He said:

He said:

The hon the Leader of the Official Opposition tried to imply through his question as to whether the Government relied on compulsory group membership on a racial basis for its constitutional dispensation that this allegedly excluded the possibility of the existing development of group rights for example. This is a trick question, precisely with reference to the personal philosophy of the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition, which includes the following: He believes in consensus politics; surely that is true. Consensus among whom—individuals? It must be between groups. Does the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition believe in democracy in which negotiation takes place among individuals? No, it must be among groups. How do those groups originate: Through voluntary association alone or through natural development. Does it mean consensus among individuals or among entities? Of course it means consensus among entities. That is what the State President and the hon the Minister of National Education said.

He believes in “freedom of choice”. Where is one going with this free choice? Does one always remain a fleeting individual or does one end up in a group? Now, if one comes into one’s own in a group, through one’s own choice, and if one wishes to maintain specific points of view as regards one’s outlook on life and the world, may other groups wilfully infringe upon this? No that cannot happen; there must be a measure of protection.

Consequently I think that the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition set up this straw doll of viewing the group merely as a political entity and not as a cultural entity. But the fact of the matter is that we on this side of the House made a choice long ago in respect of our standpoint on group rights. It is not in conflict with individual rights—I see the hon member for Sandton looking at me …

[Inaudible.]

The Judge President to whom he is referring, in fact said that group rights included individual rights, and vice versa. The other day the hon member himself used this concluding sentence in his speech. [Interjections.] In other words group rights are not in conflict with individual rights. The reply to the question of the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition, whether this is an absolute condition, is therefore that it is not contradictory to maintain group rights and political rights at the same time.

We must now ask whether we are not out of step with the rest of the world. Are we out of step with the world, or not? I think the hon member for Bryanston will argue that we are out of step. But that is not the case. With these guidelines which the State President furnished, South Africa is the front runner in the course of development of human rights and group rights. Legal reformers will have to take cognisance of the fact that there is a large measure of sensitivity over group rights prevailing at the UNO. Section 27 of the International Accord on Political and Civil Rights reads:

In 1977, in fact, UNESCO’s commission for human rights convened a working group to draw up a draft statement of minority rights within the context of article 27 of the International Accord on Political and Civil Rights.

To summarise it is clearly apparent from the latest developments on international legal and political levels that the idea of specific protective measures for minority groups, in contrast with the UNO’s previous overemphasis of the protection of individuals, is rapidly beginning to gain ground.

Therefore I say that the Government, with its approach, and the State President, with his guidelines, are in the front runners in the world in the search for solutions to the multicultural structure of this country’s population, and at the same time for the recognition of minorities and population groups. I shall leave it at that, but I still wish to say that group rights are no substitute for human rights, because these include for example the right to physical existence and survival of that group. It also includes a comprehensive right of voluntary self-determination for the minority groups on matters affecting only the interests of the group concerned. This is absolutely in line with our constitutional development here. What a wonderful state of affairs this is, to be ahead of the world for once.

What affects a particular group? It is the personal, political, juristic, geographic, cultural and social spheres of society within which a group finds itself. Furthermore it includes, within the broadest and widest context, a guarantee for minority groups of an effective say in decision-making processes which affect the entire society, if the groups concerned comply with general requirements for citizenship and franchise.

What does “Murphy’s law” state?

“Murphy’s law” states that if the hon member for Brakpan listens to me, he will cross the floor. With its 1983 Constitution the RSA is well on the way to taking group interests further, in the broadest context of political and cultural rights.

The hon member for Houghton asked me a number of questions in connection with security prisoners. Just before I come to that, I want to make the point that the Opposition, particularly the PFP, did not take into account that we as Parliament are still the most important agent for reform in this country—in order to bring about orderly, stable reform. We cannot do this if—with all due respect—sounds derogatory to this establishment emanate from the opposite side. Bearing all we have said so far in mind, and also as regards the laws this country makes, these are surely interpreted and applied by the justice-administering authority.

I just want to make this point now: The justice-administering authority, as part of the State authority, derives its authority from the State. Court decisions acquire credibility through the power of the sword which the State places at its disposal. The same applies constitutionally. There is an inferred obligation on the Government to maintain its Police Force and Defence Force in order to give credibility to all these laws.

If the Opposition, particularly the PFP, persists in disparaging our Police and Defence Force, they are depriving the laws which this country makes of their credibility. This deprives the justice-administering authority of its credibility. That is why we attach great significance to the whole syndrome of violence. With any political reform, with any negotiation within the body, this norm must be taken into account.

The hon member for Houghton asked me to what extent the State President’s latest announcement, the question which he asked in connection with Mr Mandela, affected the previous standpoint, or rather offer, of 1985. The 1985 offer was initially aimed at prisoners serving life sentences. It included persons who had already spent a long time in prison and who foreswore violence as a method of attaining political objectives. The prerequisite is therefore that there must be a willingness to participate in a peaceful way in the constitutional and political processes of the democratic dispensation, and to deal with it.

She asked me whether this was still valid. In the meantime the offer has even been extended to include other security prisoners serving sentences other than life sentences. Of those who foreswore violence, many have already been released. Last year I furnished the figures in this House.

Furthermore the State President’s offer was extended in 1985 by also making it applicable to other prisioners. Ultimately it was also extended on account of humanitarian considerations. So, for example, an offer was made towards the end of 1985 to specific people, and they were released on the ground of their age for example.

In 1986 the State President did not withdraw his 1985 offer, because it is still available. What the State President did do is that he did not undo his original offer through his latest offer, but merely extended it on humanitarian grounds. This could include age considerations, it could include a medical condition and the length of a sentence. That, clinically seen, is the situation. Anyone of those persons falling into these categories may therefore still accept the offer.

The hon member asked me what about people who have already accepted it, but who are still in prison. I have told you that one of these considerations, for example the length of a sentence, is definitely a consideration. Thus we have people who accepted it on both sides of the so-called dividing line of political thought. One served only three years of a 15 year sentence. The hon member will agree that this is insufficient. [Interjections.] Another one has served perhaps only half his sentence. According to the thinking of the Parole Board, this is not sufficient. The fact remains that it is a factor that such a person should accept. I am now referring to people in the other categories. Consequently hon members should see it as an extension of the previous offer of the State President in 1985, which is still applicable to those people who foreswear violence, because this Government is opposed to any form of violence—also as a vehicle or agency to effect political change.

Mr Chairman, I should like to comment on just one point made by the hon the Minister of Justice with regard to human rights. A clinical analysis of the requirements of any nation will obviously differ in a deeply divided society where emotions are involved and human feelings towards new concepts are one of the factors that will need to be taken into account. I should say that we would be looking at a combination of group rights together with a declaration of human rights, once the outmoded concept of apartheid has been scrapped from our statute books in such a way that there will be no conflict with and chaos in the courts. However, what the majority of the population outside see, and what will well stand this House and the population in good stead in the years to come, is that a bill of individual human rights forms part of the planning for the future as well. However, let me leave the matter at that as I wish to address the House on one or two other points.

You are making a good speech.

I always make a good speech. [Interjections.]

The two questions uppermost in all South African minds after the speech of the State President are surely whether he means that all apartheid statutes will be abolished and whether the National Statutory Council will work. Those two questions are so inseparably linked that the latter cannot succeed without the former being the case. Unless that is so, the National Statutory Council will be stillborn.

I should like to suggest that the largest part of the content of the State President’s speech is a message of hope—no more and no less. It gives us hope for the future. I would go further and say that two years ago, or even in August at the Natal Congress, the speech would have been hailed as a great breakthrough. Today, the scorched hopes of the Black council, the special Cabinet Committee and the Black forum have made the populace more cynical and suspicious. Despite the services of a PR firm the terminology remains vague. The time has come for absolute clarity when addressing the nation, or we run the risk of facing lingering doubts and suspicion which inhibit positive reaction and active participation. The real truth is that apartheid has been outlawed by the international community and the majority of the South African citizenry. It is not outmoded—it was never in mode. For those who concerned themselves about terminology, that little difference is going to leave a lingering doubt and suspicion as to whether the NP will try to weave apartheid in in some form or another, if they believe it was at some stage in mode. The fact of the matter is that it is totally outlawed and cannot possibly form part of the new era. It is now feeding upon itself and consuming the nation, tearing at the very fabric of our society and creating the most awful confusion in the minds not only of those who support it but also of its opponents and victims. The worst of all is that it is being diabolically exploited by the communist bloc. Nothing can be more dangerous to us at this time than this confusion. Why must we communicate in this guarded language and have to read speech 1 with speech 2 before we know what speech 1 means? The responses by Government members to direct questions in this debate such as for example the abolition of race classification as contained in the Population Registration Act, remind one of a freshly caught fish flapping about on the rocks.

The whole thing smells fishy.

All South Africans who seek a permanent future in this land, know that the alternative to peaceful coexistence is disaster and that the implications apply equally to all our people. For many who have suffered under the system of apartheid, there could be a quickening of the pulse at the thought of a violent overthrow of the present regime. They will have to be persuaded with all the powers at our disposal that revolution would only exacerbate South Africa’s problems. The indiscriminate loss of life, property, economic infrastructure and the consequent loss of persons with skills and experience, the loss of time needed for crucial development to cope with the burgeoning population, will lead to no one’s advantage.

When that is all done, the same elements will still have to come to terms with one another. We must sell the idea to those with heightened expectations and aspirations that evolutionary change, moving from the status quo in a mutually agreed upon direction, can be achieved peacefully by adapting existing institutions of state and the existing economic structure and thereby maintaining a reasonable measure of stability.

The NRP sees the National Statutory Council, as a body offering effective participation and decision-making, and a forerunner to a government of national reconciliation. Just as apartheid has turned the word ethnicity into a swear-word, so could other concepts such as federation and confederation be made synonymous with apartheid in this council if we are not extremely careful. Whilst ethnicity must be recognised and accommodated, the transitional phase to a discrimination-free and ethnically-based society must not be presented as the only possible end product of the process of constitutional reform. I say that because the emphasis on groups is undoubtedly going to be one of the factors about which negotiation is going to take place. The electorate of this country, particularly the White electorate—and when it comes to the nitty-gritty of negotiation perhaps more than just the White electorate—will want group bases to ensure their security. The acknowledgement that we are moving away from ethnicity to a non-ethnically based society, will make it easier. However, any emphasis on ethnicity is without doubt at this stage one of the factors which one will not get away with among all the population groups in this country. Simply to slaughter it the moment it is used, is going to lead us into a terrible impasse. The matter of ethnicity has unfortunately been so distorted that its proper use in the reform process is going to be one of consummate state craft. It must not become an over-used expression like “total onslaught”. The over-use of those words has become a matter of “cry wolf’ and should South Africa be faced with a total onslaught, it is doubtful whether people will respond to that terminology. We must clearly state the case for the moral superiority of democratic institutions.

I would just like to add one or two remarks concerning the ANC to this debate. The hon member for Brakpan referred a few moments ago to the fact that the Government had made an offer to negotiate in respect of Mr Nelson Mandela with parties involved with Mr Sakharov and one other gentleman whose name slips my mind at the moment. [Interjections.]

There are other instances which indicate the Government’s willingness to negotiate, and I should like to mention one or two. Not long ago the Government invited Swapo to participate in negotiations about South West Africa. Swapo is a communist-backed movement, a terrorist movement, fighting in South West Africa; and yet the Government saw fit to invite it to the negotiating table. We trade with—we run the harbour at Maputo—a Marxist Government in Mozambique. For many years, in fact, we paid their mineworkers in gold. A percentage of the mineworkers’ wages was paid directly to Mozambique in gold.

The public finds it terribly confusing when the Government is allowed to do this sort of thing while at the mere mention of any form of negotiation with the ANC members of the public are branded as unpatriotic, as stupid, as useless idiots and so on. The fact of the matter is that, whilst we all utterly and totally reject communism and the communist wing—or whatever one may call it—of the ANC, it might be a naïve hope, but I guarantee that there is no one in this House who would not like to separate from it the nationalist wing of the ANC, that is, those who were driven by frustration and the statutory violence of apartheid to take up arms. [Interjections.] It is those people, not the communists, who would have to come to the negotiating table. Unless, however, we are going to talk to people who enjoy the support of the vast majority of the population in this country; unless we can, at the same time, win over that population internally by means of the “new era” that the State President is ushering in; and unless also the State President’s initiatives rather than the ANC can become the symbol of hope for those people, the ANC will simply gain more and more and more strength.

The hon the Minister of Law and Order made a remark about the PFP a few moments ago. Heaven forbid that I should fight the battles of the PFP, but the remark was a stupid one indeed. He said that they would disappear, just as was the case of the opposition in Rhodesia, because of their utterances about the ANC. [Interjections.] The opposition in Rhodesia disappeared and the Rhodesian Front took over. Where are they now, however? They are wishing, in fact, that they had listened to those small minority parties, such as this one, the NRP—not the PFP, but the NRP. [Interjections.]

Sir, when we in this House debate issues concerning the ANC, let us not bluster or posture. Let us rather debate the issue with intelligence and analysis because the future of this country is going to depend on how we defuse this particular situation and get those people to participate. There is every hope that Chief Buthelezi, the Chief Minister of kwaZulu, will participate in the National Statutory Council. In fact, what did he say about the ANC on TV the other night? He said he wanted them to be granted the option to participate in a democratic, non-violent way, and I would suggest that he knows those people a little better than we do. Many White South Africans think they know the Black South African, but I consider that foolish. We know very little because we have not been allowed to know much about them, and we are going to have to find out a lot more. I suggest that Chief Buthelezi and, for the record, Chief Enos Mabuza, who is also a homeland leader, want the option given to the ANC to participate. I am afraid that if we carry on treating this subject as if it was a heresy, as the hon member for Barberton so aptly put it, we are blinding ourselves to reality. If the debate goes against the participation of the ANC, well and good; but let it be debated openly. If the risk proves too great, or if, because of that ugly communist spectre, we are shown to have been naïve in thinking we could bring them to the table, then let it be so. Let us not, however, close the door on the debate because those people outside this Chamber who support them are listening. They want to know the dangers and our opinions and they do not want us to be seen simply as a lot of blockheads who cannot see the wood for the trees.

I think you and Albert should start a new party.

That is not a bad idea.

Mr Speaker, I should like to say to the hon member for King William’s Town that not only should the people outside this Chamber have been listening to his speech, but those inside it as well. I compliment him on what he has said to this House. There was nothing in his speech with which I disagreed.

*In his speech the State President laid down certain important guidelines for which he would deserve praise if he were to implement them. Today I want to concentrate on the matter of security in Southern Africa.

On behalf of my party I want to welcome the State President’s offer to our neighbours of a hand of friendship. Most of us realise that our future and our fate is interlinked with that of the subcontinent as a whole, and that the more stability we enjoy in this region, the more peace and harmony we will be blessed with in future.

The State President then went on to propose a set of rules of the game which should be honoured by all civilised nations. By means of mutual respect and co-operation these rules would form the basis for a permanent joint mechanism to promote peace.

We on the opposition side welcome this idea, but measured against the State President’s own rules, I fear that during the past two or three years the Government’s behaviour and actions have contributed very little towards emphasising its earnestness and sincerity. The result is that before South Africa will be able to play a significant role in Southern Africa we will have to restore our credibility both internally and externally. Our friends and our neighbours with whom we want to forge ties in terms of the State President’s own offer, will have to know that we honour our word.

In September 1984 I was in Washington visiting their Department of Foreign Affairs, and the Pentagon. In various discussions with politicians and military officials, I was asked time and again how it was possible for Renamo to carry on fighting so long after the Nkomati Accord. I was specifically asked whether we in South Africa were giving assistance to that organisation. Like a good South African I denied in all honesty that this could be the case. I honestly could not believe that we in South Africa could be that stupid and short-sighted. My Government and my Cabinet—I accept this as my Cabinet—have indicated here time and again that they have honoured the agreement they entered into with Machel.

This Parliament was officially represented by its members at the signing of the agreement. By this action we irrevocably committed ourselves to a new relationship with Mozambique, although ideologically we still differed from them sharply. This ushered in a new era in South Africa.

This brings me to the Gorongosa documents. Before I refer to this, I want to remind hon members that two days ago the hon the Minister of Defence confirmed here in the House that everything the Defence Force did, was on the orders of the Government. That was a very important statement.

†This means that the South African Government instructed the SADF to plan the ongoing war in Mozambique and to support Renamo after the accord had been signed. It means that the Government condoned and in fact issued instructions that the arms build-up should take place. It means that the Cabinet must have given Col Van Niekerk support when he had the following to say in negotiations with Renamo. I quote:

The Cabinet must have known that. The hon the Minister said himself that they acted only on instructions. The State President must have been aware of and in support of a message conveyed on 16 August 1984. The journal—if it is accurate—reads as follows:

“They” refers to the South African Government.

So, they were aware of the dangers of violating the accord. The Brigadier goes on to say:

He then goes on to say, and I quote again:

And so the document goes on.

The document?

Yes, so the document goes on.

So, you believe the document? [Interjections.]

Nobody on the Government side has told me yet that this document is not authentic. [Interjections.] Nobody has said yet that the document does not in essence contain the truth. Mr Speaker, if the Government really believes that this document is not true at all, I submit it has had ample opportunity of disputing its contents. If the Government’s in doubt as to how it should dispute the contents of this document, there are many suggestions which we on this side of the House can make in connection with how that question can be resolved. [Interjections.]

Futhermore, Mr Speaker, we had the very strange visit to Renamo by the then hon Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and Information, who went to Mozambique without the permission of the hon the Minister of Foreign Affairs. I should like to know from the hon the Minister of Foreign Affairs whether Mr Louis Nel had his support when he went to speak with Renamo. No reply, Mr Speaker.

No a peep out of them!

He obviously did not! [Interjections.] Sir, I can go on to refer to several more examples of activities on the part of the SADF on the instructions of the Government which resulted in violation and circumvention of the conditions of an accord which South Africa’s State President signed publicly before the whole world. Over a period of a year or two this Government, through the SADF and through the hon the Minister of Defence, has been violating that accord, and to this day, in spite of the fact that he has had an opportunity of addressing this House in relation to this matter, the hon the Minister of Defence has done nothing or very little to put the matter into perspective.

You see, Sir, the most serious allegation I make is the following. Even before the Nkomati Accord was signed, and also after it was signed, there was no intention on the part of the Government really and honestly to honour it. [Interjections.] Furthermore, Sir, apart from the immorality of acting in such a fashion, this Government actually places all the people of this country in the gravest danger. What is more, the Government is also ruining the possibility of achieving peace in the southern continent of Africa. Whenever this Government blunders, as it inevitably does, it drops those who serve it best. We have now had many examples of military people in uniform carrying out the instructions of their Minister or of their Department, while the information they divulge in terms of their instructions is ultimately found to be untrue. What happens then? They have to take the blame. They are then dropped by the hon the Minister and by the SADF. [Interjections.] Sir, I really want to make use of this opportunity to do whatever I can to save the good name of General Viljoen who, on the clear admission of the hon the Minister of Defence himself, was only carrying out his instructions when he reportedly said certain things in Mozambique which, under certain circumstances, would have been tantamount to treason.

Do you still believe that document?

Mr Speaker, I am telling that hon Minister, if General Viljoen was acting on his instructions, he owes it not only to General Viljoen but to the entire SADF to get up in this House and to state publicly that what General Viljoen said he said on the hon the Minister’s instructions. [Interjections.] Then the hon the Minister can do whatever he can to save his own skin! [Interjections.]

*When the State President refers to civilised standards, I must ask, on behalf of this party and South Africa, that in our negotiations with our neighbouring states we must try to maintain civilised standards as well.

Time and again the Government makes catastrophic mistakes. I only want to mention a few of them. [Interjections.] This has nothing to do with being right wing or left wing. The hon the Minister is a person who is so inclined to refer to patriotism, but now I want to tell him that as far as patriotism is concerned the yardstick he uses is that the better a person tells lies the greater his patriotism is. [Interjections.] That does not apply to me, nor does it apply to this party.

†Their only sin, they believe, is that they have been caught. They were caught with the information scandal, and they dropped some of their officials. They were caught with the Seychelles debacle, and they dropped some of their men. In Cabinda they made a horrific mistake. Not only were lives lost but people were locked up too.

And you dropped the hon member for Pietermaritzburg North that day.

At Nkomati they were once again caught, and they dropped their officials. I honestly believe that this hon Minister owes this House an explanation. In fact, I believe that if the State President is serious in offering his hand of friendship to our neighbours, he owes it to this country to remove from his post a Minister who consistently blunders as this one does.

Mr Speaker, I would have thought after my hon colleague, the Minister of Defence, gave such a comprehensive reply to the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition’s accusation, the Opposition would at least have tried to establish the facts before dealing with the subject of the alleged violation of the Nkomati Accord. I think that was the least one could have expected from them, but very clearly they did not do so.

Are you in favour of the release of Nelson Mandela?

I thought the hon member who took the floor before me spoke of civilised standards.

But you do not reply to questions.

I wish the hon member could see what he looks like when he is speaking. [Interjections.]

We are tired of sitting and looking at you.

The hon Minister of Defence stated very clearly that the hon Leader of the Official Opposition was invited and that he, or representatives of his party, were informed, but instead of apologising for creating the impression that they were not informed, they come up with a further charge.

The hon member for Wynberg used words in this House today of which he ought to be ashamed. [Interjections.] I shall not simply be speaking at random; I shall tell the House exactly what happened. I should very much like to pay more attention to the purport of the statement made by the State President last Friday, but I am now obliged to deal with the charges made by the Official Opposition about the alleged violation of the Nkomati Accord.

The fact of the matter is that numerous complaints were received from Mozambique about the Nkomati Accord allegedly being broken by South Africa, by elements in South Africa or by elements of the Defence Force. That is so.

Let me take the House back to the run-up to the Nkomati Accord. In 1983, particularly after the bomb explosion in Pretoria—hon members will remember that it sent shock-waves reverberating throughout the country—we warned the Mozambique Government. We told them that if such explosions did not stop the Government would have no choice other than to retaliate and to take steps involving reprisals, preventive action and self-defence. These telexes are on record; it is no secret. We went so far as to say that even if the rest of the world were to hit out at us as a result of our acts of self-defence or reprisal, we would accept those consequences rather than allow the bomb explosions in our country to continue with impunity, even if this were to lead to sanctions against us. They were warned that we would cross the border to eliminate the ANC targets. Such action was also taken on occasion.

By the end of 1983 we had progressed to the point where a meeting could take place between members of the South African and Mozambican Governments. In January and February of 1984 we were in the process of negotiating to establish an accord in accordance with which both governments—this was the main aim of that accord—would undertake to not allow their territory to be used for training terrorists or other elements, or for supporting or helping them to commit acts of violence against the other.

There were other provisions as well. In this accord a mechanism was created to deal with alleged violations of the accord, and that mechanism would determine its own procedure. The accord was signed on 16 March 1984. A number of the hon members of this House were present on that occasion. During that period I put it very clearly to the Mozambican Government, by way of negotiations, that if there were any further bomb explosions in this country after the signing of the Nkomati Accord—bombs brought into this country by the ANC before the signing of the Nkomati Accord—we would not blame the Mozambican Government for it. Our standpoint was: “Let bygones be bygones. We are going to look to the future”.

The Joint Security Commission came into operation after the Nkomati Accord was concluded and functioned very efficiently too. I could just mention in regard to this that some time later—because their system of government differs considerably from ours—they requested that those serving on the committee should at least have ministerial status. We met that requirement as well and the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Deputy Minister of Defence and of Law and Order subsequently became joint chairmen of our component of the committee. We met frequently. Along with colleagues of mine from the Department of Defence and of Law and Order, as well as officials from various other departments, I often went to Maputo. There we held in-depth discussions with each other on mutual charges of violations, after such charges had been investigated.

Let me give hon members an example. I recall one complaint that cropped up repeatedly was that there was a cave somewhere between our two countries. Somewhere in the Eastern Transvaal there was a cave, and that cave ran underneath the border. That cave was apparently so vast that gigantic lorries laden with Renamo members and weapons could travel from our side of the border through that underground cavern and came out in Mozambique where the weapons were then offloaded. To this day we are still searching for that cave.

On one occasion two Britons were shot dead. The immediate response was that the tracks of the murderers led up to the South African border. We reacted at once by asking Mozambique if we could get together so that they could immediately show us the tracks. We also offered to make helicopters available to assist with the tracking. It took a long time before we were informed that the commanding officer who had seen the tracks had, along with his troops, been transferred to another part of Mozambique and that he consequently was not available to indicate to us the point at which the tracks penetrated South African territory.

There were complaints concerning a fishing-boat from Durban that had drifted into Mozambican waters after its engines had failed. The Mozambican authorities arrested the people on board and only released them after interrogating them over a period of months. They were innocent fishermen from Durban.

There were various complaints of this nature. These complaints were continuously and fully investigated. We did not deny the possibility of there being elements in South Africa that continued to give aid to Renamo. But the standpoint adopted by the Government was that it would carry out the accord and that we would act against violators if allegations or evidence of violations were brought to our attention.

What did we do? I personally travelled to certain African countries, the bushy areas of which, according to Mozambique, were being used for the offloading of provisions for Renamo that were being flown in during the night. I am referring to African countries north of Mozambique, but shall not mention them by name. I went to the Presidents of those countries and confronted them. I told them that if we wanted peace in Southern Africa, we would all have to keep to the basic rule of not allowing our territories to be used for perpetrating these kinds of deeds. They denied that it was happening, but I asked them to make a close examination to see whether their territories were not perhaps being used without their knowledge for the landing of aeroplanes and the transferring of weapons.

Our police also succeeded in tracking down a gang of smugglers that printed counterfeit American dollars notes and South African Rand notes. This gang illegally traded with people in Mozambique for ivory, certain kinds of precious stones and other goods.

At my request the Department of Defence went to great expense to erect a radar screen on the border between Mozambique and South Africa to monitor and report on all unauthorised flights. We gave the reports on these flights to Mozambique. I think that at one time there were approximately 12 unauthorised flights during a period of 14 days. We gave them the flight routes and the times of those flights. Those flights indicated that they came from the direction of Zimbabwe or Malawi and that they followed a course more or less along the border to Swaziland or Mozambique—and in one case to the Inhaca Island. They themselves did not know of the aircraft that had landed on their own island, the Inhaca island; they were in fact very interested in the information.

As far as I recall, on occasion we requested an unannounced aircraft to land. This aircraft contained a number of soccer players who had undertaken an unauthorised flight through their airspace from Zimbabwe or elsewhere. We, however, get the blame. If a speck appears on the Mozambican radar screens, they say it is our aircraft. Regardless of how many specks there are—it is always us. It is simply accepted as such. One of the country’s Ministers recently told me that on a certain date he had personally seen two specks on the radar screen. He then gave instructions for them not to be shot down, because—so he said—they were so certain that it was our helicopters because the craft were apparently flying slowly. If they were to have shot down those helicopters there would have been irrefutable evidence against us. In the light of such irrefutable evidence, the Nkomati accord would have been wrecked. So for the sake of the Nkomati accord, the evidence was therefore not to be produced. I spoke to radar experts afterwards who said this was utter nonsense. According to them there are aircraft that fly at the same speed as helicopters and it would be impossible to see whether or not it was a helicopter on the screen or not.

In any event, all these matters were thoroughly investigated. I am just giving hon members an indication of the trouble we took to keep that accord alive. I have not mentioned the large amounts of money either that we planned to spend on improving the railway line. It would have served particularly to stimulate our exports from the Eastern Transvaal and the Pretoria-Wit-watersrand area because it is the cheapest export harbour we have in this part of South Africa. Harbour facilities have been improved. We have cooperation in many areas. A food production project, which we guaranteed by means of credit, was started. To my knowledge it is one of the few successful food production projects in that country, and it was undertaken by a South African institution in the private sector.

All these things were done, but then we arrived at the difficult year of 1984—after the Nkomati Accord had been finalised—and to the time of the diary entries of Lt Vaz, who as an aide-de-camp or assistant of President Dlakhama, the President of Renamo. I met the man myself on one occasion when he accompanied President Dlakhama to Pretoria. I noticed he had a little book and that he was always writing. He was always writing! It did not matter whether one was talking or not; that lieutenant was always writing. It is quite true that after the Nkomati Accord was concluded we entered into talks with President Machel personally, with General Veloso, Ministers Vieira, Monteiro and Hungwana and Mr Honwana. They asked me to negotiate with the commanders in the bush.

†They asked me not to negotiate with the Portuguese members of Renamo, but to get through to the commanders in the bush; they are Mozambicans. Talk to them. Tell them we shall grant them amnesty. I had long discussions about this. I told the Mozambique Government that if we succeeded in getting the commanders either come to us or if we went to them in the bush they would be afraid that should they agree to stop the war, they would be persecuted or eliminated. I was assured that I could tell the Renamo men that South Africa could act for some months as a guarantor for their safety and security. I had long discussions with the Mozambique Government about whether Renamo would be allowed to have cattle of their own and grazing lands; whether they would be allowed to trade in cashew nuts again; whether they would be able to sell their products freely again; whether their schools could be run by them again; and whether they could get village shops again because Renamo alleged that all these things had been taken away from them as a result of the process of nationalisation. I was given the assurance by President Machel that I could deal with them, that I could negotiate with them on this basis.

I then asked my colleague the Minister of Defence whether he would try to get Renamo commanders from Mozambique to Pretoria. I said we had to end the war and there was only one way to do that and that was to talk to them.

*Let me now ask in all fairness—I am also asking the hon member for Wynberg—if he were now the Minister of Defence, and I asked him to assist me in making peace in Mozambique, how he would go about getting the Renamo commanders out of Mozambique? [Interjections.] No, we must be reasonable towards one another today. I now come and ask the hon member for Wynberg—he is now the Minister of Defence—and this is what I say to him: Look here, now we would very much like to help make peace; would you please make arrangements to go and fetch the commanders of Renamo out of the bush in Mozambique?

There is only one way: contact has to be made with them. It must be established whether we would still be welcome because we had previously admitted to helping to train them; we helped them. “That was the bygones that became bygones”. It was a reciprocal situation, and in this manner the airforce officers, risking life and limb, flew in low over the bush, made contact, negotiated with the commanders, and brought them to Pretoria and this against their will—let me tell you that—where I met them for the first time.

Over many weeks we sent messages back and forth because the aim was to create an opportunity at some time during 1984 of getting Renamo and Frelimo together and jointly drawing up a document establishing a ceasefire, with South Africa filling a mediating role and being guarantor to both sides.

There were plans on how we would help them to plough. My hon colleague, the Minister of Defence, told me not to be concerned; he would assist me by making available members of the Defence Force and the Civilian Force who could do the ploughing. We would also send in doctors and dentists. At one stage we had a figure of 100 in mind. To achieve what? To help President Machel to show, within a short space of time, that friendship with the West and with South Africa would be worth more to Mozambique than its, nine-year friendship with Russia. It is a pity that the West…

Mr Speaker, may I put a question to the hon the Minister?

No, I am very sorry. I did not bother the hon member and I gave him a fair chance.

I think the House, and the country too, should hear this account for once and for all. One can go through all those entries in the diary of Mr Vaz—the information tallies with the flights undertaken by the airforce. That is true. The times of our meetings in Pretoria are correct. The times that they indicated I had been present, are correct. Their allegations of what I supposedly said in Pretoria, however, are not quite correct. I was, after all, accompanied by officials. What they have attributed to me in that diary is not quite true. It is their record, however, and it is quite conceivable that these men, on flying back to the bush and having to talk with the other commanders, would then state that this was what the Minister of Foreign Affairs had said. I do not think that they agreed with me that the war should be ended, and as a consequence they possibly conveyed my standpoints in such a way as to discourage the concept of a ceasefire.

How could I refute certain entries I knew to be incorrect according to my own knowledge on the one hand, while on the other accepting an entry concerning my colleague, the Minister of Defence, or Gen Viljoen and Col Van Niekerk as the absolute truth? What kind of mentality and morality would that be? What kind of approach to fairness would that be? These entries, however, are being presented as the gospel truth. No one bothers to take up the invitation to come and establish the facts. It is just a matter of getting up here and with great indignation and sanctimoniousness referring to my colleague in terms the hon member for Wynberg should apologise for. [Interjections.] The civilised standards the hon member talks of, apply to him as well.

It is correct that in September/October 1984 we did in fact succeed, with the aid of the airforce, in eventually bringing the two parties together in Pretoria for a week. The Minister of Defence and I worked day and night, assisted by the hon the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs. We had breakfast with the one group; lunch with the second group; dinner with the first group and late night refreshments with the second until two or three o’clock in the morning. Then we would be on the point of reaching an agreement, but there would be a troublesome word, and the next day we would again be on the point of reaching an agreement, but once again there would be some word bothering one or the other group. Eventually we did have a mutually acceptable document. We succeeded and the State President personally read that document in the conference hall where both parties were present. For the first time in history Renamo and Frelimo were on the brink of a ceasefire agreement. South Africa could come into its own there to play this kind of role which I think it ought to play—the role of mediator and peacemaker, supported by its technology and economy, by means of which it wants to help people to produce food and by means of which it wants to help create employment for people. South Africa had therefore played its role as a stabilising factor in Southern Africa, but then a telephone call was received from Lisbon and one of the Renamo members was asked from abroad to adjourn the meeting. The meeting then adjourned and the State President told me:

On my arrival at Jan Smuts airport, I received a message from Lisbon: “It is not opportune to receive you in Lisbon.” So I phoned Maputo and told Minister Vieira: “Look, this is what my Government has tried. We were close to an agreement. We were at it. You had better start talking to the Americans, the Europeans and the British who come to us every day and say we violate the accord, but who in effect do very little to prevent individuals from Europe and else-where from interfering directly with the peace efforts of the South African Government.”

These are the facts. Hon members are welcome to go and look at the entries in the diary of Mr Vaz. I was in Maputo in September when the entries were read to me. Of course these were serious charges. On the return flight I sent a message requesting to speak to the State President immediately on my arrival. I went directly from Waterkloof airport to the State President and told him serious accusations had been leveled against the Defence Force. They we read out to him and he immediately called in the Minister of Defence, Gen Viljoen and the other officers. The charges were put to them and they denied them. Their denial aside, the State President then said he would immediately instruct a committee to launch an investigation into all the flight manifesto’s. Dr Gilliland and Gen Rogers, the former head of the Defence Force, investigated every charge concerning the furnishing of arms that was communicated to us. They reported back to the State President and stated: Yes, the flights were undertaken. Yes, power paraffin was taken for the generator required for making radio contact with us with a view to our discussions and yes, they did, at times, have guns and other weapons for their personal protection on the aircraft. However, I very clearly recall the words of General Rogers: “Minister, if you can get onto a Dakota one-tenth of the load alleged by Vaz in that diary for that day, bring me that Dakota. That would be a miracle.”

These matters were investigated. Dr Gilliland, Gen Rogers and I subsequently went to Komatipoort where we met the Mozambican Government. We gave the findings to them. They asked certain questions. Dr Gilliland and Gen Rogers gave them further explanations. I was under the impression that the matter, as far as those charges were concerned, was behind us.

The next moment a document was being circulated by Mozambique at the UN. In this document the identical charges were being repeated. What we did then was to simultaneously circulate the report of Dr Gilliland and Gen Rogers.

Let me state that I did not receive serious complaints from other countries. Other countries did not identify themselves with the complaints, as has happened here in this House. There were inquiries, but we were not told that we were lying. These matters were discussed. The ambassadors of those countries were put in the picture. They did not come back to me with this kind of suspicion-mongering that I came across in this House today. To my amazement these allegations were repeated after my colleague, the Minister of Defence gave a full account on all these matters.

Now, however, they have come up against the internal political situation and now clearly see how irrelevant they are becoming. Now they come and sow suspicion on the weakest possible basis. I have given the facts here. If there are any of these hon members who want to question the facts, they must say so. Then bring facts to contradict this.

The hon members of the Opposition owe the South African Defence Force, and particularly my colleague, the hon Minister of Defence, an apology. They also, however, owe him their appreciation.

Mr Speaker, may I ask the hon Minister a question?

No, I am sorry. He is taking up my time. Let me state it very clearly here today. The South African Defence Force is a model of service to the national interests of South Africa. The present State President during the time that he was Minister of Defence, nurtured and promoted the Afrikaans-speaking and English-speaking elements as if they were of great value.

Even Dieter Gerhardt!

He did so specifically to advance the cause of national unity. The Defence Force was a pioneer in regard to the inclusion of Coloured South Africans, Asiatic South Africans and Black South Africans, to unite in fighting for South Africa and defending our security.

Let me state one thing very clearly here today. I am grateful for the psychological pioneering work done by the South African Defence Force to facilitate the work of the Department of Foreign Affairs abroad. They were in the forefront of reform in this country, preparing the road ahead so that we could seek political solution. They extend a protective umbrella over all political parties, including the PFP, over the CP—over all of us. They have always had only one wish. That wish was: “Asseblief, kan die politici betyds ons probleme oplos”? They will provide the security.

I cannot think of a service motto any less selfish than this. Let me therefore tell the hon member of Wynberg that he owes my colleague, the Minister of Defence, an apology. He also owes the South African Defence Force his appreciation.

Let me just say in conclusion it is not as if Mozambique alone has submitted complaints concerning the violation of the Nkomati Accord. We foresaw allegations of violations and consequently created a mechanism in this accord to investigate and meet such complaints to our mutual satisfaction. South Africa also had complaints based on evidence from people who were arrested in Swaziland—a group of ten. These people said they were equipped in Maputo, were paid in Maputo and were helped to cross the border to Swaziland where they were then captured. Other people, arrested in the Transvaal and in Natal, have made similar statements during interrogation. These charges were submitted to Mozambique. Because there is a mechanism to investigate this kind of thing we did not make it known far and wide, or give each other a poke in the eye, or fling around accusations, as was done here in this house today.

We went to Mozambique, told them what our complaint was and asked them to investigate it. Until such time as they have replied, we would not run to the international Press to blacken their name. The Official Opposition has therefore, as far as this matter is concerned, not done Pres Machel a favour, and certainly not themselves either. They have gratuitously interfered in a matter that is receiving constant attention. Both Governments continue to be pledged to the Nkomati Accord. This Government observes it in letter and in spirit. This President, my colleague the Minister of Defence and I, are irrevocably pledged to the implementation of the Nkomati Accord. If any hon member of this house has any evidence that an officer of the Defence Force or any other official of this Government has violated that accord, he should come to us and tell us about it. I think it is unfair, in a civilised system and in a civilised country, for one party to allow itself simply to be led by one-sided allegations made in a partisan way, without giving the other party an opportunity to state its case and without even taking the trouble to establish the facts.

Mr Speaker, the hon the Minister of Foreign Affairs devoted his entire speech with his customary vigour to his efforts at peace negotiations in Mozambique with the result that one was often uncertain whether he was siding with Renamo or the Mozambique Government. [Interjections.] I hope that hon Minister will extend me the courtesy of listening to what I have to say. [Interjections.] In spite of that hon Minister’s repeated vigorous action on television and again today in this House, he has become symbolic of the capitulation of the last White bastion in Africa. [Interjections.]

The hon the Minister was much concerned over what was transpiring between Renamo and the Mozambique Government in that country, but he did not utter a word on the burning questions of South Africa. Why did the hon Minister not have a word to say on what he told foreign correspondents today, as reported in The Argus: “South Africa could have Black President”?

I wish to ask the hon the Minister of National Education whether he agrees with this—I know the hon member for Randburg does. I should like to ask the hon Leader of the House, who is not present, whether he agrees; I wish to ask the State President whether he agrees with the hon the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

According to this report the hon the Minister of Foreign Affairs also had the following to say about ANC Leader, Mr Mandela:

I want to ask the hon the Minister whether what has been printed here is true. The hon the Minister is nodding his head—he confirms its truth.

I wish it to be set out clearly to the people of the country out there that this is the standpoint of a Government in the process of surrendering to ANC gangs. During this debate we have observed the interesting phenomenon that NP speakers have covered the entire political spectrum from the far left almost to the centre. If one considers only the hon member for Innesdal, who tried to frighten the Afrikaners and the White people of this country with Black aspirations to freedom, one wonders whether he thinks there are no longer White aspirations to freedom in this country either. The CP wishes to tell the Government very clearly that there is no room for both these two aspirations to freedom in a unitary State.

On the other hand we had the hon the Minister of National Education who made an almost conservative speech. We also noticed that the hon Chief Whip of the NP made far more use of speakers ranged nearer to the hon the Minister of National Education. I think he is reinforcing the Minister’s chances in the “great race”. I do not hold this against the hon Chief Whip because even in the days when we were in the NP he was always more on our side.

In truth, since the beginning of 1982 the NP Government has come a long way in accepting the principle of power-sharing and one Government in one country. At the time the principle of separate development had already been relinquished with the acceptance of the principle of an undivided South Africa, of a single citizenship and of universal franchise within the borders of this unitary state. In other words, the policy of separate development was abandoned in toto. The State President declared this unquivocally in his opening address last Friday—or are there perhaps still NP members in 1986 who believe that separate development remains NP policy?

Last year, less than a year ago, the hon member for Bloemfontein East said in this House that separate development and a White South Africa remained his policy—this is recorded in Hansard. I am not angry with the hon member and say this with great piety. There were many people in the country who appreciated the fact that he still believed in separate development.

Most of the Free Staters!

That was less than a year ago. I wish to assure him that most Free Staters support him if he says so but does he still stand by separate development today?

The hon member for Potgietersrus, for example, was still writing in a pamphlet 18 months ago during a by-election: “Het u dan vergeet dat afsonderlike ontwikkeling die beleid van die Nasionale Party is?” The voters had obviously forgotten because they did not vote for the hon member’s party in that election.

Let us see what the hon member for Hercules wrote a little earlier during the referendum. He extended a personal invitation in these words:

[Tussenwerpsels.]

Surely the hon member was living in a fool’s paradise or he was honestly unaware that this would occur—I prefer to believe the latter.

The further one delves into the history of the NP, the more furious was its condemnation of and the more intense its opposition to the idea of power-sharing and the more fervent the support for the idea of partition and separate development. Let us look at a pamphlet that appeared in the early seventies for instance, under the healine: “Politieke Magsdeling” the then NP said:

Just listen to what they had to say about political power-sharing:

It is very interesting that a little further on in the pamphlet they named one of the coarchitects of this plan. It was none other than Mr Japie Basson, today serving on behalf of the NP in the President’s Council. Then the pamphlet drew this fine conclusion. Under the heading “Politieke bedrog” one finds:

Surely this “most dangerous policy direction” is the direction of the NP policy today. It continued:

In conclusion it then referred to the NP alternative:

—and that is the standpoint of the CP today:

Sir, that is fine language but today the NP says that a White South Africa has never existed. Can hon members believe this?

Recently the NP wrote a new Programme of Principles. I cannot actually read it—there is no time—but nowhere under the seven given headings will anyone be able to show me where this concept of a White people or a White South Africa is printed. [Interjections.] It is not included anywhere. Consequently the NP is no longer the political people’s front of Afrikanerhood or of the White nation of South Africa; hon members over there no longer represent the Whites of South Africa. [Interjections.] That party is so ashamed of the Whites of this country that it has deleted White interests from its Programme of Principles. [Interjections.] In other words the interests of Whites are denied by that party; it is in the process of permitting political power to leave the hands of the Afrikaner people—both English and Afrikaans-speaking. One can hardly blame people out there if they feel betrayed. [Interjections.]

I wish to tell the governing party that the feeling of resistance, of raging resistance, is flaring up against that party and its current integration policy. [Interjections.] What has replaced those fine old principles after all? Let us examine what has taken their place. I wish to read a few to the House:

This under one department. This is stated NP policy now.

What is wrong with that?

Sir, I am not reading from this book which I am using as an example, namely the NP’s Programme of Principles; I merely placed my source within the NP Programme of Principles. I am actually reading from the PFP Programme of Principles now. [Interjections.] NP principles no longer differ from those of the PFP; I think the two parties had as well support each other.

The political prophet of the NP, Dr Willem de Klerk, wrote a splendid article in Rapport of 12 January. He said there were three great forces of which the retention of power was one. On this he said:

We know who they are. Hon members for Bloemfontein East, Carletonville, Overvaal and Middelburg still believe in the retention of power but they should know that, if they accept power-sharing, they have renounced the retention of power for ever.

If we examine NP experience further, we have to conclude that in the implementation of the new constitution a little more than a year ago not one of its promises has remained. The most important principle to fall by the wayside is most certainly the constitutional freedom of a people with a right to existence in this country.

In conclusion I wish to say to the Government that the official announcement last Friday introduced the enslavement process of a once proud, free people. Someone said: “As jy ’n trotse volk verkneg, word opstand teen die reg sy reg.” That right is ours, and we of the CP are irrevocably bound to this on behalf of the White people of South Africa.

Mr Speaker, this Government has commenced its political year in South Africa with an advertising campaign.

Paid for by us!

One must concede that this is a new and interesting development, and it is certainly unusual for a political year to begin with that kind of activity. I would also say that it is a curious development. Some of my colleagues interjected a moment ago to the effect that it is a very expensive advertising campaign for which funds are being misappropriated, a word I use without qualification. I consider it a disgrace that public funds should be spent in this way.

The matter of funding aside, let us ask ourselves why the Government find it necessary to use an advertising campaign to convince the people of this country that they are going to implement reform. In business, one uses advertising to outdo one’s competitors and perform better than they do. In the business of implementing reform and the new constitutional and social systems in this country, however, the Government have no competitors. They are in power and have the monoply. It is simply a matter of their taking decisions and implementing them. The question then remains: why is it necessary for them to go to the curious extent of implementing an advertising campaign? One must inevitably come to the conclusion that they are using this method to persuade people who, through bitter experience have learnt otherwise, to believe them. Taxpayers must now be robbed of their money to finance the NP out of their own incompetence and crisis of credibility.

I believe that this campaign will not succeed; the only thing that will is the implementation of some kind of new system for this country. The hon the Leader of the Official Opposition has made it very clear that the demands for such a system are much greater than they were a year ago. I want to support that theme because I believe that in 1985—this applies particularly to the area where we are now, namely the Western Cape—more damage was done to human relations than during any other year that I am aware of.

*That is as a result of a number of things, for which the Government must take most of the blame. In the first place, there is the creation of the apartheid structure. Secondly, now that they have realised that it is a system which cannot work, there is their foot-dragging approach to the reinstatement of a normal system in South Africa. Added to that is their hopeless inability to respond meaningfully to the results of the frustration they have created in the Black, Coloured and Indian communities in South Africa.

In this respect I want to blame the hon the Minister of Law and Order in particular. I requested that he be here, but I see he is not. I therefore hope the hon the Deputy Minister of Law and Order will listen to what I have to say about this.

In the first place I want to say I believe that hon Minister suffers from an immense degree of ignorance. He said things with great conviction here this afternoon which are absolutely absurd and untrue. He said the so-called Van Eyck Commission, in which I played part, had produced eight complaints about police action. That is completely devoid of truth. I think perhaps the hon the Minister should speak to his own officials about this.

In addition I want to charge the hon the Minister with disregarding the lessons learned during the past year, not even in the very distant past. The Kannemeyer Commission was appointed—the hon the Minister says it was done on his recommendation—to make an investigation and to reach certain conclusions. In the summary at the end of the commission’s report we read in the first paragraph that in all likelihood, if the prohibition had not been placed on the holding of funerals on that day, the funeral would have taken place normally and not led to any damage, injuries or death. In the second paragraph of the summary there are strong recommendations for the police to reconsider their presence and their own actions at the funerals of persons killed as a result of police action, as a matter of the greatest urgency. That is a very clear recommendation.

What was the hon the Minister’s reaction to this? Initially we heard nothing, but a few months later the hon the Minister made a very specific statement in Port Elizabeth. I can only assume that it was a reaction to right-wing pressure exerted upon him. He said that from then onwards he would issue specific instructions that restrictions would be imposed in respect of funerals and that the police would have the right to intervene as they saw fit.

A funeral is the most emotional and explosive situation conceivable in the life of a community. In addition, political pressures and frustrations exist already. To cap everything the hon the Minister goes against the specific recommendations of a commission and orders intervention at funerals.

By depending to a very great extent on the state of emergency, the hon the Minister acted irresponsibly. In addition, he is still bluffing himself today that it was the emergency situation which led to conditions returning to relative normality. I put it to the hon the Minister that our thanks for the relative normality we have today is attributable to the response within those Black and Coloured communities. It is attributable to the endless patience of those people. It is attributable to the aversion to violence which is present in those communities, and not to the action of the security forces.

I merely want to refer to two particular cases to bear out my argument. The first case is that of 15 October 1985, the so-called Jack-in-the-Box case. In this particular respect I do not want to refer to allegations, as the hon member for Houghton did, for I questioned many, many people on this and took down statements. This was only two days after the event. I also saw a video tape about it—a number of times. I am therefore convinced of my case. What happened there is very clear. That motor truck with security men of the Railways Police entered that area with the specific purpose of provoking people to throw stones at them. [Interjections.] This took place, Sir, in an extremely tense situation! That motor truck rode up and down until they succeeded in provoking a reaction. Then they jumped out of the motor truck and began shooting. Incidentally, I can tell the hon the Minister that shots were fired at random.

Have you seen that video, Louis?

I am sure the hon the Minister can find an opportunity to watch the video tape himself. Then he will see for himself how shots were really fired. They shot buckshot at random from that motor truck.

With buckshot?

Do you know what buckshot looks like?

It was in a street in which the front doors of the house were closer to the motor truck than I am to the hon the Chief Whip of Parliament right now.

Were you really talking about buckshot? [Interjections.]

One of the children was shot two metres inside the front door of his house, in the passage. He was shot dead there. That child had fallen onto his bed in a pool of blood when one of the security men ran into the room, grabbed him by the foot and dragged him outside. [Interjections.]

Sir, I am entering specifically into the unpleasant details of this case because I want to bring home to the House—and particularly to the hon the Minister—the effect an occurrence of this kind must have on that family, that community, on all the people involved in such an incident. The damage caused to race and human relations in that particular area, by that single incident—and I can mention a number of others—will be felt by us for many years. We shall suffer under it for years. It may even take decades before it can be wiped from the memories of those people.

Mr Speaker, while listening, in the course of the debate thus far—a debate which will undoubtedly go down as a watershed debate in the history of South Africa’s constitutional development—to certain remarks from the other side of the House, I was reminded by the imagery of the hon member for Brakpan relating to the Titanic, of a recent newspaper report to the effect that the wreck of the Titanic has been found and that efforts are to be made to salvage the remains of that vessel.

Listening to the statements on policy of hon members of the Conservative Party, I cannot help speculating about the probable form of those pieces of the wreck which are now, after more than 70 years, to be brought to the surface from the black depths of that ice-cold ocean. [Interjections.]

Are you not ashamed of yourself, Gerrit? [Interjections.]

Sir, in this debate we have been very much under the influence of the direction-giving and far-reaching implications of the State President’s opening address. In a certain sense, what has been said here is overshadowed by the clear, businesslike and simple way in which the State President expounded the essential elements of his policy vision for the future.

And then you went and spoilt it completely!

What one found particularly striking here was that in contrast to the realism with which the State President approached his political policy statement, we had an evasion of the realities in two essential respects as far as the hon members of the Opposition Parties in this House are concerned.

Now you are trying to vie with FW.

On the one hand there was the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition who, in his introductory remarks, asked the question—in fact he did it with concern and amazement—referring both to this year’s Parliamentary opening address of the State President and last year’s opening address, as to whether reform was still going to take place in the context of group ties, of group membership; almost as if it was totally unimaginable that anything of the kind could happen. The idea was expressed by various hon members of the Official Opposition that one could still perhaps speak about groups but that one definitely should not link them with ethnicity. However, in this country—whether one likes it or not; whether one would have liked it to be otherwise or not—are faced with the situation of groups that differ drastically and substantially from one another and in respect of whom ethnicity and other differences constitute a significant factor. Any party that draws up its policy without taking these realities into account, is drawing up a policy that cannot work and which therefore cannot be implemented either.

On the other hand, the hon member for Waterberg said at the end of his speech that the policy of his party and the solution proposed by his party lay in every people having its own territory and its own sovereignty in this country. Apart from that the hon member for Brakpan—in my opinion wrongly—contented that it was the standpoint of this side of the House that separate freedoms were no longer possible.

However that is not so. It has been clearly spelt out by the State President in various speeches that the separate freedoms for peoples who have their own geographic territory—as in the case of six self-governing states and four independent states is and will remain a reality and will continue to contribute substantially towards the total solution of emancipation of peoples and population groups with a view to the acquisition of political rights in this country. [Interjections.]

While this policy and approach still offers an important contribution to the solution of the overall picture it has become clear, despite more than two decades of effort by our best statesmen, officials and planners—that the policy of separate freedoms in separate areas and states for the various peoples and population groups in South Africa is simply not feasible, and cannot be carried out with regard to the Coloureds or the Indians, or with regard to those Black people who are permanently settled—whether we want to know about it or not—outside the national states in South Africa.

Our responsibility to our children and our descendants consists in constructing a policy of the kind spelt out by the State President which is based on the realities of the situation of this country and which does not evade the group realities. On the other hand, too, however, structures must not be developed which in practice clearly cannot be implemented despite earnest and dedicated efforts, with regard to specific population groups and specific parts of the population. We must carry on along that road responsibly and we must take the realities into account.

Every fair observer of the political situation must recognise that the speech by the State President in reality ushers in a new dispensation. It deals with far-reaching and drastic changes and renewals and reforms of broad scope which have already been implemented under the leadership of the State President, or which were announced with a view to implementation. Therefore his speech has established a direction-giving new beacon and a milestone for the next stage of our journey.

Concerning what I have just said, I wish to re-emphasise today how necessary it is that in the course of the process of reform we take the realities in this country into account, as the State President has repeatedly spelt out. Among other things, we shall have to bear in mind the inescapable reality of South Africa’s population diversity. We cannot carry on with reform as if that did not exist. Our own practical experience of the implications of this population diversity as well as the lessons taught us in this regard by Africa and the rest of the world from all sides and from all times, warn us that the essential reform with regard to individual freedoms and liberties cannot be emphasised one-sidedly at the expense of the equally important group rights and the freedom of population groups, peoples and communities. Therefore political reform such as that which is taking place at present, in which all communities—as the State President put it—in an undivided South Africa and with one citizenship share in the exercise of political power at all levels of government, will also take into account the practical, concrete and inescapable realities of our population diversity. Apart from joint and shared decision-making by all groups concerning all matters of common interest, this point of departure means that our reform programme must also make provision for the protection of the right of self-determination of groups and peoples concerning matters of importance for their own communities. This, too, must take place at all levels of government.

It is in this regard that the power-sharing advocated by this side of the House differs substantially from the power-sharing advocated by the Official Opposition. The Official Opposition advocates power-sharing in the government sphere as a whole. As far as it is concerned, there is no distinction among the various spheres of government. This side of the House, on the other hand, in line with decisions initiated by the NP as far back as 1976—when those hon members still belonged to the NP—struck a balance. Power-sharing in regard to those affairs that are undeniably of common concern, is qualified and kept in balance by the equally essential right of self-determination of each of these groups in regard to those matters which are clearly their own affairs. In this regard we have a form of power-sharing that is clearly qualified and kept in balance, and which at the same time takes into account the reality of the ethnic diversity in South Africa.

[Inaudible.]

Order! I think I have now given the hon members for Langlaagte and Jeppe an opportunity to release pent-up feelings. I request them to make no further remarks while the hon the Minister is speaking. The hon the Minister may proceed.

Sir, this point of departure means that the minority groups in our nation, with its complex population diversity, must enjoy protection. This also means the elimination of domination of one group by another. Complying with this requirement is difficult and we have no illusions on that score. If we really want to bring about long-standing and practicable reform in South Africa, however, this is a requirement that we cannot and may not evade.

It means, too, that steps will have to be taken to ensure the protection and security of community life and in that way give the various population groups and peoples a feeling of security. It further means that the reform we bring about must also ensure the maintenance of the civilized norms and standards that we have achieved and established here in South Africa.

In view of the realities of South Africa, therefore, it is necessary for the diversity of our ethnic groups to be provided for in our reformed system on a fair, non-discriminatory basis—particularly with regard to those matters which have now been mentioned repeatedly, viz those of separate residential areas, separate schools and separate political representation for the various population groups.

Is that non-negotiable?

Sir, it is not apartheid, because instead of the negative, discriminatory and dominating aspects of the apartheid of the past, this process of differentiation must now be made acceptable by negotiation. [Interjections.] It must be put into effect as positive and protective differentiation—and therefore as functional differentiation that promotes reform.

Recognition and accommodation of the complex diversity of our population—in the form of own residential areas, own schools and own political representation—is necessary to achieve that very group security and safeguarding which must serve as a key to open the door to reform. It must also serve to promote and ensure, among us Whites in particular, a broad preparedness to accept drastic reform. We must be realistic, because without the provision of group security safeguarding of groups, we in South Africa will not succeed in making long-standing reform, which entails the drastic implications of political power-sharing, really acceptable.

This differentiation which we deem necessary is therefore necessary specifically in order to move away from the unbending separation of communities that dates from the oudated apartheid era. It is also necessary in order to achieve acceptance of community structures which will combine our various population groups in a broad South African nation. In such structures they will have to accept joint responsibility in the process of joint decision-making and power-sharing in regard to matters of common concern. This differentiation is needed to ensure self-determination, and own community life and group security for each population group and for each people within the South African nation. It is this very aspect that establishes the separate power base on which our people can accept and approach the essential renewal and reform with assurance and security.

It was striking that there was little reference in this debate to the matter for which I am in fact responsible and which at this stage is very much a focus of attention in South Africa. I refer here to the whole matter of education, and particularly Black education, which plays a critical role in the process of reform. Also because the State President devoted an important part of his address to this, I should like to give attention briefly to some of the main objectives which at present enjoy priority in this regard.

I think that next to the perception of the exclusion of Black people from important spheres of political decision-making thus far, and next to the frustration which—we must admit—is caused Black people by influx control and pass laws, grievances and shortcomings in the education of Blacks are probably one of the three major sources of bitterness and dissatisfaction. It is therefore gratifying that the State President has committed the Government anew to equal provision of education for all population groups. I should like to refer briefly to two matters touched on in the debate which may just need to be put in perspective on a factual basis.

The hon the Leader of the Official Opposition and the hon member for Jeppe referred to the number of schools damaged and destroyed. Now, it is unfortunately true that due to the way the offical release was formulated at the time, the figure of 920 schools was fairly broadly interpreted as 920 schools that had been destroyed. However, that figure of 920 relates to all incidents in connection with damage to schools—even where 10 to 12 incidents occurred at the same school. I wish to state this clearly here, just to furnish some perspective. This does not derogate from the objectionableness and unacceptability of these acts of destruction. For the sake of perspective I just want to mention here that the number of schools that were in fact destroyed total 17 out of the total of more than 7 000 schools falling under the control of the Department of Education and Training. Of those 17, half were destroyed within one weekend in Duncan Village. Then there are a further 350 schools which suffered a greater or lesser degree of damage and concerning which one can say with gratification that a large number of the Black communities have already put their hands in their pockets and offered their own labour to repair those schools—at their own expense as well.

Here, too, I should like to provide some perspective in regard to the alleged degree of success achieved with the boycott of schools. Whereas the impression has been left that the matriculation examination for Blacks at the end of last year was for the most part boycotted, the fact is that out of a potential number of approximately 90 000 pupils, 71 000 wrote the full matriculation examination. In that examination the pass percentage this year, in spite of the disruption, was 3% higher than in the previous year. Only 11 000 pupils opted to write a special examination this year. This shows, therefore, that in spite of the boycott efforts, the vast majority of our pupils still availed themselves of their opportunity to write this examination. Coming, then, to the objectives of the Government with regard to educational reform, I want to refer in the first place to the objective of equal treatment in the financial sphere—as the State President put it: “the equitable distribution of resources among the various communities”; something which, he said, would put enormous pressure on the Treasury in future and which would require not merely millions of Rands, but billions. The Government’s serious intentions with regard to this matter are already evident from the increase in the budget appropriation for Black education under the Department of Education and Training, which rose from R147 million in 1978 to R917 million in the present financial year—an almost sevenfold increase in as many years. This growth rate is probably as much as any system can process administratively, and also probably comprises the biggest sustained growth in any State budget.

Moreover, in order to achieve equal provision of education for all population groups and to bridge the present disparities, work is in progress, under the leadership of the hon the Minister of National Education, on a joint financing formula which will apply to all educational departments and in which all variables that influence financing will be processed. This formula will also make provision for a phasing-in term in order to push up the budget appropriation, within a reasonable time and within the means of the State’s financial resources, up to the amount required by the formula. In this regard we must point out that the rate of increase of the Black population does of course make it difficult to catch up with backlogs in education, as is the case throughout Africa.

Another important priority is the improvement of the quality and standard of teacher training. The training of all new teachers already complies with the minimum standard required by the De Lange Report, viz at least three years of training after Std 10. We are also expanding the 34 existing teaching colleges by establishing more new colleges, particularly in the urban areas, so that they are situated closer to residential areas and so that students may undergo training while living at home. It is also an exceptional achievement that the Department has succeeded, over the past year and again this year, in involving more than half of its 45 000 serving teachers in some form of in-service training. There 8 000 teachers attending in-service training courses at the Soshanguve College, while 11 500 students are enrolled at the Vista University this year for post-matriculation education courses. Moreover there are 4 000 teachers who lack a formal matriculation qualification but who are working towards one by way of evening classes presented by our adult education. We also have a comprehensive and very successful management training project which, with the aid of the expertise of the private sector, is being presented to improve the managerial skills of educators in control positions. Over a period of three years, 13 600 serving teachers will be involved in this. In my opinion there are few education departments elsewhere in the world that would have succeeded in involving so effectively more than half of their serving teachers in such intensive training and upgrading of their qualifications.

In particular I want to mention that additional service training is at present being focussed on teachers in the senior secondary phase—in regard to which large-scale use has been made of sophisticated interactive videos—in order to make an urgent effort to reduce the unacceptably high failure rate in the matriculation examination. At the start of the system there are also specific in-service training courses to upgrade teachers in the junior primary phases. The preprimary phase, too, is being upgraded with a view to remedying deficient school readiness, because deficient school readiness is the cause, among so many preschool children, of large scale dropping-out and school-leaving after the first three to four school years, something which has a very unfavourable influence on the cost-effectiveness of Black education.

A third important objective is to improve the school’s hold on their pupils—in other words, the combating of early dropping-out and school-leaving. Apart from focussing, in in-service training, on remedial programmes in the preprimary and junior primary phases, in order to assist the child’s entry into the school process by way of the necessary remedial teaching, exceptional success is also being achieved in combatting of school-leaving in the secondary phase. I think that it is an exceptional achievement that the percent-age of pupils in the secondary phase increased recently from 5% to almost 20%. In less than a decade the number of Black secondary pupils has increased from 110 000 to 750 000, and the full-time Std 10 pupils from 11 000 to more than 90 000. There is really an explosion in the number of secondary pupils in black schools and this has undoubtedly put tremendous pressure on the system’s capacity to provide, in good time, education of adequate quality to the growing numbers of pupils. This has also exerted an unfavourable influence on the matriculation pass rate, and therefore the rectification of this deficiency is a very high priority.

It is interesting that our experience with Black education may be compared with the problems experienced in the USA in the sixties and seventies when their education, too, showed a tremendous tempo of growth, a tremendous population explosion.

Due specifically to the large-scale increase in the so-called “minority groups” at school level, and despite a tripling in education expenditure, the quality of American education at that time of population explosion, declined to a disturbing extent, measured in terms of the so-called “Scholastic Aptitude Tests”. The Americans formed a special task force to investigate this matter. The nature of this investigation, and the concern at the problems with which they were confronted, is evident from the title of that report—“A nation at risk.”

If the Americans, with their sophisticated economy and development, experienced these problems in connection with an explosion in their education growth, then I think that in spite of our shortcomings we have not really done so badly.

I also wish to point out that whereas reservations have been expressed in the Black communities as to the involvement of Blacks in the formulation of policy in the top ranks of education, special attention has also been given to upward mobility and the promotion of Black educationists. Provision is being made for an increased say for Blacks in the Department of Education and Training. At this point I just wish to state that there is no policy-determined limitation of the level to which Black people may progress in the professional and administrative hierarchy of the department. Indeed, in order to stimulate the promotion of Black people—suitable Black officials—special courses are presented at Head Office to identify those people for appointment and promotion as education planners. With the further aim of promoting the credibility of the departmental promotion policy, three senior Black members of staff have been appointed to each of the two important selection committees dealing with appointments to promotion posts.

For the first time—with effect from 1 November last year—Black educationists were appointed to seven new posts of deputy director in each of the various regional offices.

Moreover I should like to mention briefly that a high priority is being given to the extension of the functions—if my colleague will permit me to refer to this—of the Department of National Education with its task as the new single central educational department which bears the responsibility for a uniform general education policy for all communities.

I believe the time has come for our critics to refrain from portraying the number of education departments in South Africa as ridiculous. Decentralization of executive education departments is a normal phenomenon which occurs in other countries, too, such as the United States and West Germany. In these countries there is a large number of autonomous education departments which are to be found in every state without this necessarily giving rise to bureaucratic red tape.

The Opposition does not only criticise the basis on which the division is effected. They reject as a bureaucratic waste, the differentiation implied by the division. [Interjections.] They do so time and again. I therefore wish to show clearly that this is an unfair criticism.

In any event, the variety of autonomous education departments in South Africa is justified by diverse considerations. First there is the consideration of better administration. Then, too, there are the differences in the level of culture and development, which entail distinctive schedules and demands in respect of each system. In addition there is the fact that separate executive education departments form the basis for self-determination in respect of education as an own affair for each of the respective communities.

Let us be realistic with one another. Achieving the objective of equal educational opportunities will not be promoted by mixing or throwing open existing schools. Nor will it be furthered by combining all education services in one colossal monster department. The objective of equal education opportunities will be furthered by providing more and better schools and equipping them better and more extensively. This objective will be achieved by training more teachers, improving the quality of serving teachers through in-service training, identifying and eliminating backlogs and bottlenecks and combating early school-leaving.

With reference to the idea put forward by the hon member for Bryanston—that there should be a fifth central education department for open education—my answer is that we are convinced that own schools and own education are essential to the development and furtherance of an own community life and for group security. Our schools do not only have a responsibility to promote the diversity and distinctiveness but, in accordance with the principles we have accepted in our general education policy, our schools also have a responsibility to promote communality and what we all have in common. We are therefore convined that the recognized and valid aid of education must be to prepare our children not only to cherish and uphold what is theirs but also to have a grasp of the other and to be capable of taking their place in the multinational reality of the South African community by way of co-operation and coexistence. At the school level we must create opportunities in a responsible fashion to enable our children to make contact with, make the acquaintance of and have interaction with pupils of other population groups. This interaction among children of the various population groups at pupil level can best be done from the basis of own education systems in which the community links are protected so that a further effort can be made also to make the acquaintance of, develop an understanding for and co-operate with people of other population groups. In this sense we are convinced that the policy of the furtherance of equal education opportunities, the creation of improved possibilities in the educational sphere, as the hon the State President announced, is an important building block and component in the development of the Government’s reform programme.

Mr Speaker, that hon Minister is always at his best when he is talking as a technician on education, but I am afraid he is nearly always at his worst when he talks as an NP politician trying to marry the concept of education with the political policy of the NP.

I was going to enter this debate with a degree of generosity towards the State President on my interpretation of what he said and what his advertisement said, but the more I listen to this debate, and in particular to the hon the Minister of National Education and the hon the Minister of Education and Development Aid, the more difficult I find it to be generous towards the NP and its interpretation. I believe that if these two gentlemen’s interpretation is correct, this advertisement in the newspaper should be scrapped and rewritten. In ordinary English and Afrikaans it cannot mean what the hon the Minister of National Education and the hon the Minister of Education and Development Aid have been saying. It seems to me that members of the NP either have their lines crossed or they do not understand their own policy, or else there is fierce competition within the NP to gloss over what has been done.

The hon the Minister of Education and Development Aid did the worst thing possible today, almost like the hon member for De Kuilen did yesterday. He said: “Dit is gekoppel aan aparte vryhede.” The hon member for De Kuilen actually linked this with Dr Verwoerd. The hon the Minister links it with the concept of “aparte vryhede”, and he specifically refers to self-governing national states. The problem is that if one wants to get people like Chief Buthelezi and others to the negotiating table, one cannot expect them to come along to organize “aparte vryhede”. They do not want “aparte vryhede”—they want to be part of South Africa.

The hon the Minister talks about “aparte vryhede”. We cannot have them for Coloureds. Is that correct? We cannot have them for Indians. Is that correct? We cannot have it for permanently urbanized Blacks. Is that correct? I want to know whether we can have them for Whites. [Interjections.] Why then is he referring to the issue of “aparte vryhede” when hardly anybody in South Africa is affected by this nonsensical, crazy hangover of the Verwoerdian era? [Interjections.]

Let us look at some other arguments used by the hon the Minister. He says that certain aspects of apartheid are not discrimination but differentiation. However, we have been through all this before. We were told before that separation in sport was not discrimination—it was differentiation. We were told that apartheid in trade unions was not discrimination. The same applied to apartheid in libraries, theatres and on the beaches. It was always called differentiation until the penny dropped and the Government realized that it was discrimination. The Government will have to realize that separate schools and group areas, on the basis of compulsory racial membership, is discriminatory. They are going to have to accept this.

It is a pity that the State President is not taking part in this debate. He gave a once-off when he spoke here last Friday but we could not even make interjections. He uses Press advertisements but gives no explanation to try to tell us whether those two hon Ministers are correct. While the State President is here the hon the Minister of Foreign Affairs tries for twenty minutes to defend a murky, messy, clandestine operation in a foreign country instead of telling us his interpretation of the State President’s speech. The hon the Minister of Foreign Affairs says that “as long as we can agree on a suitable way of protecting minority rights without a racial sting—which is what the PFP has been saying all along—he believes that it will be unavoidable that in future we may have a Black president.” If Blacks share power in this country that becomes the inevitable result. How can we have “aparte vryhede” for Black people but at the same time the hon the Minister says that one of those people enjoying “aparte vryhede” can become the president of South Africa? What absolute nonsense!

This links very closely with what the hon the Minister of National Education, the leader of the NP in Transvaal, said, namely:

If one really did believe in group security, what a miserable, what a petty, ineffective basis of providing group security this is. They must have “ ’n eie gemeenskapslewe”. Let us look at group areas in this context. Does the hon the Minister not agree that the basis of a “gesonde gemeenskapslewe” is the family? In the family context, in marriage, during the rearing of children and in living a family life, is there going to be freedom of choice or not? [Interjections.] Is there going to be freedom of choice for the family, the kernel of “gemeenskapslewe”?

Let us look at the next facet of “gemeenskapslewe”, namely work and working in the community. Is there going to be freedom of choice for the businessman, the labourer, the worker, the public servant and the housewife going to the shop? Of course there has got to be freedom of choice in that part of “gemeenskapslewe”!

What part of “gemeenskapslewe” do we have left? Sport and leisure time activity. Are we going to go back to apartheid in sport if we want to have “ ’n eie gemeenskapslewe”? No, for sport there is also freedom of choice.

Another important part of the “gemeenskapslewe” is religion. Are we going to have freedom of choice? Is there going to be freedom for residents to live where they choose? No, there is going to be group areas. Are areas for compulsory residence by Whites going to be set aside? Yes. Will Blacks and Coloureds be allowed to live in those areas? Yes, they will be allowed to live in those areas provided they live there as servants. They either live there as servants or as foreigners or diplomats. The hon the Minister knows that in almost every town in South Africa there are as many Black people living in White areas as Whites because they are the servants of White people. That is colonialism and paternalism. The Black person can come into White areas but only if he is a servant!

Let us look at schools and education, another kernel, another keypoint in “gemeenskapslewe”. For universities there is a freedom of choice. For technikons there is a freedom of choice.

No, they are not sure about that.

In schools? Yes, one has freedom of choice if one can pay to go to a private school. So it is not a principle any more because one has freedom of choice in regard to private schools and Sunday schools. What about Government schools? What if there are communities who in the exercise of their self-determination do not like the national policy of the Government? The Minister says that separate schools is rooted in the self-determination of communities. Then he says that there has to be one national policy on education. How can there be self-determination of communities and one national policy of education laid down by the NP in South Africa? This is absolute nonsense! The hon the Minister has not moved out of the past. The penny has not dropped.

I believe, however, that within the NP for the next short while he has got some role to play in South Africa. [Interjections.] So I want to say to those two hon Ministers, who are party leaders in the Transvaal that they are much more concerned about looking over their shoulders at the CP than they are about the future of South Africa. [Interjections.] They are so scared of the right wing, of the CP, that they will undermine the very efforts that the State President is making to sell a new deal for South Africa. Allow me just to offer a word of advice to that hon Minister, the party leader in the Transvaal and the crown prince of the NP. For years we in the PFP have been telling the Government to abolish apartheid, and they have been saying that we were wrong. For years we have been telling them to accept the principle of power-sharing, and again they have said that we were wrong. Now we say to them that they should accept the fact that freedom of choice in South Africa is the only alternative to apartheid. As soon as one departs from freedom of choice, one enters a field of apartheid and compulsory segregation. There is no alternative.

Let me put the Government at rest, however. I say to them that they should not run away from this concept, because through a system based on freedom of choice they can do justice to the aspirations of the individual. Through a system of freedom of choice they can reflect the multicultural diversity of South Africa. [Interjections.] That is the best way of doing it, Sir. Moreover, through a system of freedom of choice they can ensure power-sharing without the domination of one group over the other. What is still more, is that through a system of freedom of choice they can start to heal the wounds of generations of apartheid on the body of this nation. They can unite the people of South Africa in a new commitment to the future. I want to ask the hon the Minister not to say once again that we in the PFP are wrong.

You are always wrong.

“You are always wrong.” Just listen to that! [Interjections.] Yes, we are wrong sometimes, just as that hon Minister was wrong when he said old people could live on R20 per month. [Interjections.] Nevertheless the Government should not just say we are wrong and disregard our advice because, one day when they eventually discover that we were right, it might be too late.

Now I want to come back to the matter at hand. One can look at this no-confidence debate either against the background of the mismanagement of this country over the past year or one can look at it against the prospects for the future. One point of view would be a mammoth vote of no confidence. Another point of view would range from faint hope to deep despair. The deep despair becomes reinforced every time I listen to the speeches of the hon members on that side of the House.

However, I do not want to hark back to the past right now, except to say that the events of last year are going to have an impact on our prospects for the future. They are going to have an impact on the possibility of the implementation of the State President’s basic guidelines for the future. I want to say to the hon members on the other side of the House that there can be no mistaking the fact that the events last year will make an indelible impact upon the future of the country. There is perhaps no other year in the history of this country—other than 1960-61, the “Sharpeville year”—that will have a greater lasting effect on our politics than 1985. The events of last year scarred our people. Those events have left our nation polarised. They have left Whites more confused and made Blacks more radical, more determined, and more confident that power is flowing their way. Black people have also been left cynical, disillusioned and, frankly, mistrusting of the Government’s reform intentions. In spite of the speech made by the State President at the beginning of last year, when he committed himself to reform, in practice—and this is reality—last year was for millions upon millions of Black people a year of repression and not a year of reform. Last year is going to make the process of negotiation and reconciliation more difficult. It has reduced the options and compressed the time frame within which we are going to have to come to grips with one another if we are going to live in peace.

It is against that background of 40 to 60 years of apartheid and that last year of repression, that we have to consider the State President’s prospects for the future. His speech could—I stess “could”—be a critical turning point. However, it could also prove to be just a last futile attempt to save something from the wreck of apartheid. For the sake of my country, I hope that it will be a turning point. If—and it is a very big “if’, especially when one listens to the hon NP members of this House—it is a turning point, it will mark the end of government by coercion and the start of politics which involve a battle for the hearts and minds of all the people of South Africa. If we are going to survive, we shall have to try to win them over to negotiation as opposed to violence, to co-operation as opposed to conflict and to sharing as opposed to dominating.

We in these benches believe that, if the South Africa that is to come is going to be worthwhile, we have to win the hearts and minds of the people of South Africa for a society based on such concepts as the rule of law, individual liberty and private initiative.

Having said this, let us realise that winning this battle is not going to be easy. While we Whites now proclaim these concepts to be universal, they are today, after decades of apartheid, identified in the minds of the Black people with White privilege, White exclusiveness, White domination and White exploitation. That is why we say it is so utterly futile to indulge in superficial politics when one is aiming to win the hearts and minds of Black South Africa. It is stupid and futile for Government spokesmen simply to say that the ANC is a communist controlled terrorist organisation. To oversimplify the nature of that organisation with which the majority of Blacks identify as their “liberation movement”, is to give a respectability to violence and a status to communism which they do not deserve.

Instead of this dangerous oversimplification, let us, now that we intend to win the hearts and minds of Black South Africans in a new political struggle, ask ourselves why Black South Africans have turned to violence. Why have millions of them come to accept violence as inevitable? Why did an organisation which for 50 years was nonviolent turn to violence under the impact of the crude and hurtful apartheid legislation of Dr Verwoerd? Why do some Black South Africans, who themselves are basically not communists, turn to communists as allies in their struggle against apartheid?

Let us ask ourselves these questions and, when we come to understand the answer, we will realise that the approach to winning the hearts and minds of Black South Africans does not lie in banning, outlawing, detaining or imprisoning them. It lies in saying to Black South Africans that whatever the situation was in the past, things are going to be different in the future. These people who still carry on defending the past of “aparte vryhede”, who say that one can still have apartheid in schools and other places are, in fact, making it impossible to win the hearts and minds of the majority of South Africans. We must tell them that, whatever happened in the past, there is now a better way of achieving their liberation from discrimination and oppression, and for attaining full status as citizens of South Africa.

If this were the reality which the State President’s statement and advertisement intended to convey to South Africa, it would be worthwhile. If, however, the reality underlying the State President’s message is contained in the speeches we have heard from various hon Ministers, we are wasting our time. If we carry on in this way the conflict and violence will not only continue but will get worse.

There should be no ambiguity about the State President’s statement. I do not want to deal with it any further. My observations should be seen in the context of what has already been said on the subject by the hon Ministers of the Government.

The statement must be followed up by decisive action. The State President has indicated certain areas of action, but I want to suggest some more which will be of both practical and symbolic importance for millions of South Africans.

The State President refers to equal treatment and opportunities for all South Africans. Let him announce in this House in the coming month that the whole of the Public Service will forthwith be open to South Africans of all races, and that appointment, promotion and remuneration in that service will in future be made without discrimination on the grounds of race or colour. That is what he expects the private sector to do, so let him do it in the public sector.

That is the position in the Police Force now so what are you complaining about?

We want the State President to do it now.

But that is already the position in the Police Force.

I am talking about the whole of the Public Service.

Let me make another suggestion. The State President promises “access to the courts and equality before the law”. Let him pass a Bill in this session declaring any denial of access to the courts or inequality before the law to be unlawful. That can be done.

The State President says there must be power-sharing and that no South African will be excluded from full political rights. Let the State President stand up in this House and say that his Government on the basis of this pledge is going to scrap the present tricameral constitutional system before the next general election takes place, so that at the next general election all South Africans whom the State President says can participate will be able to participate in the election of a government which will rule over all South Africans. [Interjections.]

Without even changing the law let the State President or the leader of the NP come to the House next week and say: “Let us stop the farce and the charade of sitting in three separate Houses and having three separate debates on matters of common concern to all South Africans.” That would be meaningful. To continue with this farce and to perpetuate a tricameral constitutional system is to negate the very principles which the State President has stated. [Interjections.]

You want chaos.

The hon member says we want chaos. Unfortunately there is no time to take this matter any further.

We would hope that the process of negotiation in some form or other gets under way. If it is to get under way I want to tell the hon members on that side of the House, just as we have to tell ourselves, that the political negotiation of the future will have to be much more sensitive to the feelings, emotions, aspirations, hurt and anguish of Black South Africans. If we can do that, perhaps we can get negotiations under way. However, if we continue with the old-type party politics that we have heard from those two hon members there will be no future in spite of the State President’s statements.

Mr Speaker, I move:

Agreed to.