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

DATE: FRIDAY, March 20, 1992                   TAG: 9203200454
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-10   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

SOUTH AFRICA

F.W. DE KLERK won his gamble. The people of South Africa are winners too. An amazing 69 percent of voters in Tuesday's referendum approved their president's attempt to negotiate a political settlement with the country's blacks.

It was a vote for hope, but fear played a part on both sides. The hard-liners who want to continue white domination fear advances by the black majority. Many whites who backed De Klerk fear the results of reform, which likely will mean an ultimate decline in their own status and living standards; but even more, they fear the blacks and the bloody alternative if reforms fail.

Already there is much political violence in South Africa; it claimed about 2,600 lives last year. Given the defiant rhetoric and neo-Nazi trappings adopted by white supremacists, there probably will be more.

The irony, of course, is that 86 percent of South Africa's adults sat out this election - not from apathy but because, being black, they lack the vote. Again they had to wait and watch while a tiny white minority decided their future.

But their prospects of sharing power with whites are much better today, as is the chance that this can be achieved by mostly peaceful, orderly means. Opinion polls indicate that more than 80 percent of urban blacks are satisfied with De Klerk's leadership; some even like him more than they do the African National Congress' Nelson Mandela.

Because he launched sweeping changes in the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev won a Nobel Peace Prize. Yet for all the courage his reforms required, he never was bold enough to put his own program to a vote of his people. De Klerk's willingness to take high risks to bring about needed change is an example for political leaders everywhere, not least in the United States. The next Peace Prize could well go to South Africa - to De Klerk alone or to be shared with Mandela.

Only a Communist could have wrought what Gorbachev did. Only a member of the ruling National Party could have come as far as has De Klerk. It was his own party that, more than 40 years ago, set up the hateful structure of racial separation that seemed destined to last until overthrown by bloodshed. Tuesday's vote, said De Klerk, means that South Africa has closed the door on apartheid. We devoutly hope he is right.

by CNB