
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, March 22, 1990                   TAG: 9003221785
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
DATELINE: WINDHOEK, NAMIBIA                                 LENGTH: Medium

MANDELA LECTURES BAKER

Black nationalist leader Nelson Mandela, savoring after 27 years in a South African prison the sort of treatment usually reserved for a head of state, summoned Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze and U.S. Secretary of State James Baker to a rented house Wednesday for back-to-back lectures on the evils of apartheid.

With Baker at his side, Mandela told reporters that the secretary of state's planned meeting today in Cape Town with South African President Frederik de Klerk might cause the rest of the world to ease the pressure on the white minority government.

"We do not think that there has been any fundamental change in the policy of the [South African] government," Mandela said. "There is nothing which Mr. de Klerk has done up to now which would require a change of strategy on the part of the international community.

"The fact that the foreign secretary of a superpower now visits de Klerk can create a great deal of confusion, specifically that the nationalist government has done something which requires a change of attitude on the part of the international community," he said. "We regard that as regretable."

Baker responded that the Bush administration approved his meeting with de Klerk in order to show support for "efforts [that] are being made in good faith to move the process forward in South Africa."

"We believe it's important to try and encourage that process to move forward," Baker added.

Despite this difference of opinion, Mandela and Baker both said that they were in complete agreement on the objective of replacing South Africa's official policy of racial segregation with a non-racial democracy.

The Soviet minister said that he had discussed with Mandela the negotiations scheduled to begin April 11 between de Klerk's government and the leadership of the black majority.

"These negotiations will result in very important results," Shevardnadze said. "We want it to happen like that."

by CNB